THE LEADERLESS GENERATION OF ROMANIA HEAD TO EURO 2016

Romania head into the Euro 2016 tournament in France with a leaderless crop of players.


Ever since the likes of Cristian Chivu and Adrian Mutu retired from international football, supporters have watched the current crop churn out dismal performances. Romania is set to take on France, Albania and Switzerland in Group A at Euro starting in a few days.

Romania would have it difficult qualifying from the group though there are expectations that they qualify for the next round at the continental tournament. The results of the pre tournament warm up games were not very impressive, playing a 1-1 draw against DR Congo before losing 4-3 to Ukraine in Italy last month. The two results broke the hearts of the fans and revealed the team’s limiting abilities. It brought back the fears ahead of their opener with France on June 10.

Their star player Cordoba’s Florin Andone was amazing at the second tier of Spanish football, scoring 21 goals last season. He has attracted several from La Liga clubs ahead of next season. The 23-year-old is hungry and always ready to put up a fight. He has had a rapid rise moving from third tier football in 2014 since getting promotion to Cordoba’s first team. Manager Anghel Iordanescu will be hoping he brings his best in France.

The Romanian team would pick the draw against Spain as a reference point but the warm up games revealed their weakness in defence but Iordanescu will hope his boys can replicate that performance. Pundits are predicting the team will move past the group stage at best as there are a lot of qualities that would have given them the advantage such as having a leader that can motivate the team to victory, even in the midst of frustrations and pressure.