Mircea Lucescu (79 years old) is the greatest active Romanian coach, but the matches in the League of Nations have shown us that, including with “his magic wand“, there is still a lot of work to be done at the national team!
Mircea Lucescu. PHOTO: The Truth Archive
Because there was a very big difference between what the first representative team showed against Kosovo (3-0), in Pristina, and three days later, at the Steaua Stadium, in the confrontation with Lithuania (3-1). Both matches were won, but there can be no term of comparison between them from a qualitative point of view.
Even so, the final result is what counts and, with maximum points, Romania respected its status as the favorite to win the group and to be promoted to League B. This perfect debut in the new edition of the Nations League also brought a notable performance for tricolors. From 2020 onwards, it is only the second time that the first representative team starts a campaign with two victories. The last time we managed to do this was in the Euro 2024 preliminaries, under the command of Edward Iordănescu (46 years old). And the start launched, with victories against Andorra (2-0 away) and Belarus (2-1 at home) carried Romania towards qualifying for the final tournament in Germany. It should be noted that, in the campaign for the Euro, the tricolors not only started strongly, but also ended the series of games in the group with two successive victories: 2-1 against Israel, in Felcsút (Hungary), 1-0 against Switzerland, on National Arena.
Turning to the Nations League campaign, an eventual group win after the games are over in November could bring us another remarkable performance. In addition to the fact that first place will send us to the Nations League B, 2026-2027 edition, such a ranking would prove that we have about “subscriber” in the 1st place. Because we also reached the European Championship in Germany from the winning position of the series. Until the performance achieved under the command of Edward Iordănescu, Romania had not won the 1st place in a group since… 2007! The tricolors then qualified for Euro 2008, finishing 1st, in a series with the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Belarus, Albania, Slovenia and Luxembourg.
Some years followed in which we always struggled, in different campaigns. We even reached Euro 2016, with Anghel Iordănescu as the selector, finishing 2nd, after Northern Ireland.
