Dinamo, a tragedy in red and white: the explanations for the collapse of a colossus of Romanian football EXCLUSIVE

Romania has an extraordinary ability to destroy its brands, and in football what happened to Steaua and Dinamo is testimony to this.

The team from Ghencea, European champion in 1986, is struggling in the mediocrity of the second league, and the team from “Ștefan cel Mare” is about to join them. Because, on Sunday, close to midnight, there are very high chances that the second relegation of the “dogs” will be made official. The first was in May 2022, after the tie lost with Cluj University (0-2 away and 1-1 at home). The second one can come now, without Patriche and colleagues having the chance of a dam.

But how did it get here? The explanations were offered for “Weekend Adevărul” by racial dynamists.

Costel Orac: “Three big mistakes”

When Dinamo was playing a semifinal of the European Champions Cup, in the 1983-1984 season, Costel Orac (65 years old) scored against the Germans in Hamburg (3-0) and then repeated in the return of the semifinals with Liverpool, in Bucharest (1-2 ).

“The situation now is desperate. In my time, we would never have imagined that Dinamo would ever get relegated, let alone be threatened with a second relegation… In our time, Dinamo was a force for Romanian football“, told us the former striker, with over 40 successes in red and white.

He then reviewed the big mistakes this season: “First of all, at the beginning of the championship it went to the hands of the players who helped and contributed to the promotion. But he did not invest in strengthening the team. Because, in my view, after you promote, it's normal to bring something extra to the key positions that are in a team. The second mistake, and I say this from the position of a coach who wants the technicians to be left to do their work in peace and benefit from patience, was, however, postponing a decision regarding Burcă. Because the game was clearly lacking, the team was unable to score and kept losing points. Perhaps if Burcă had been changed earlier, Dinamo's fate would have been different this season. And the last big mistake was delaying the winter transfers. It would have been ideal for the coach to have the players transferred during the break period at his disposal in the winter training camp. Which, unfortunately, did not happen. Finally, to end up losing important points, in the last minutes, in five capital games in the play-out, is not OK…“.

Vaișcovici: “I'm disgusted!”

Another great former Dynamo player, Claudiu Vaișcovici (61 years old), with an important contribution to the campaign in the 1989-1990 season, when the semi-final of the Cup Winners' Cup was reached, was hardly persuaded to say anything.

“Believe me I am disgusted by everything I see! Not only at Dinamo, but in the play-out. The games are done. Just look at the results that have been in the play-outs in recent weeks. And Dinamo is to blame for losing eight points at the end of the matches. With those points, now you could not even appear in the last stage, because you were already saved from relegation“, the former top player told us, with almost 60 goals for Dinamo.

“Demotion with salaries of 20,000 euros!”

It's not just the former glories who are suffering now, waiting for the last stage of the play-out. Equally affected are the journalists who have been with the band from “Ștefan cel Mare” for many years. Among them is Cătălin Mureşanu (ProSport), a hardened dynamist, but who knew how to do his job honestly, making the difference between the status of a supporter and that of a journalist.

“Dinamo started this season crookedly. With a ban on transfers. Which the shareholders did not manage to solve. It was a sum of 500,000 euros that former players were asking for. If you had paid it, the ban would have been lifted immediately. They paid it in the end, but many stages were lost until this problem was solved“, Mureșanu told us at the beginning of his analysis.

“Then, the Burca case. After he left Dinamo, I asked him in a show if he assumes a possible relegation, in case the team ends up in “B”? And he told me no. But I say that Ovidiu Burcă is also guilty. Why? Because at the beginning of the season he tolerated this situation, with the ban on transfers, and did not come in front of the supporters to raise an alarm. Instead, he came and said everything was OK. That's why I say that Ovidiu Burcă also has his share of the blame for the current situation. He always covered the problems at the club and stood up for the shareholders“, continued the journalist from prosport.ro.

“And, on top of all this comes another big problem: the ignorance of those who made the decisions at Dinamo. Here, the fault belongs, first of all, to Andrei Nicolescu. Of course, we have Eugen Voicu, the president of the Red&White Board of Directors, and Dan Gătăianțu on the financial side, but Andrei Nicolescu said that he assumes the team's results. He came in front of the management and supporters and said that Dinamo's objective is 8-10 places. Which the team never came close to. And because of this ineptitude, Dinamo is about to be relegated for some very large sums! We are talking about monthly salaries that start at 13,000 euros and, from what we hear, they even jump up to 20,000 euros per month in some cases! At the same time, FC Botoşani brings players for less money and is close to salvation. Attention: Botoșani was below Dinamo in the ranking for a long time! And that's why I say that here you can see the ineptitude of the leaders. Of course, to everything I've said, there's also a big dash of bad luck. Because a team that loses eight points on the brink of the 90th minute or later has a big problem“, Mureșanu explained to us.

Play-out, stage 9 (last)

Sunday, 21.30

Oțelul Galati – FC Botoșani

Poli Iași – Petrol

FCU Craiova – Hermannstadt

Dinamo – UTA

Volunteers – Cluj University

Ranking

1. UTA 37 points

2. Galati Steel 33p

3. Hermannstadt 31p

4. Cluj University 30p

5. Petrol 29p*

6. Boots 25p*

7. Volunteers 24p

8. Poli Iasi 24p*

9. Dynamo 22p*

10. FCU Craiova 22p*

*teams that benefited from rounding up the score.

**The 3rd place in the play-off will play a play-off with the winner of the play-off between the 1st and 2nd places in the play-out for a place in the Europa Conference League. The 9th and 10th places in the play-out are relegated directly. The relegable places 7/8 in the play-out play a play-off with the places 3/4 in League 2.