Athlete of the Week on RRI: Footballer Nicolae Stanciu

Nicolae Stanciu put in another solid performance for his club

Florin Orban, 14.03.2017, 12:57

Romania no longer has any representative in European inter-club competitions. Astra Giurgiu was the last Romanian team to be knocked out from European competitions this season. Astra lost in the Europa League round of 32 by Genk of Belgium. Under these circumstances, only a handful of Romanian players performing for other European clubs are newsworthy in the Romanian football press.

Once such club is Anderlecht Brussels, the team of two Romanian players, Alexandru Chipciu and Nicolae Stanciu. The Belgian side made it to the Europa League round of 16 and holds good chances of advancing to the next phase. Last Thursday, Anderlecht defeated APOEL of Cyprus 1-nil away from home, the only goal of the match being scored by Nicolae Stanciu. The Romanian midfielder was designated Player of the Week by the UEFA website, grabbing 37% of the votes, followed by Ruslan Malinovski, Genks Ukrainian midfielder, with 25% of the votes, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Manchester Uniteds Armenian midfielder, with 23% of the votes.

For his achievement, we have designated Nicolae Stanciu Athlete of the Week on RRI.

Nicolae Stanciu was born on May 7, 1993 in Cricau, Alba County, central Romania. He made his debut with the local side Unirea Alba Iulia. He played his first match in professional competitions at the age of 15, in a second-tier league match against Corvinul Hunedoara, which Unirea won 4-1. He made his debut in the Romanian First League in 2010 at only 17 years of age, in a match against Steaua Bucharest, which Alba Iulia won 2-1.

In June 2010 the German club VfB Stuttgart signed Stanciu for a 500k Euro fee, but shortly released him on loan back to his home club, Unirea Alba Iulia. In 2011 he was signed by FC Vaslui, and in 2013 he got transferred to Steaua Bucharest. In 2016 Steaua sold Stanciu to Anderlecht.

Nicolae Stanciu made his debut for Romanias national team on March 23, 2016, in a friendly game against Lithuania, scoring the only goal of the match. His first official cap for Romania was last years opening match of the European Football Championship against the host country, France. Romania lost the game 2-1, the goal for Romania being scored by Bogdan Stanc from a penalty kick obtained by Nicolae Stanciu. (Translated by V. Palcu)