The match against Mount Negro is also the first match as a coach for Christoph Daum, the first foreign coach in the recent history of the national team.
The Tricolours start on a new road to the final tournament! The match against Mount Negro is the first one in order to qualify to the 2018 World Cup. On August 13th, coach Christoph Daum announced the extended team for the meeting tonight. Amongst the 26 football players, there are 4 new ones: Vlad Achim from FC Steaua Bucharest, Romario Benzar and Razvan Marin from Viitorul and Dorin Rotariu from Dinamo.
The national team met on August 29th, in Mogosoaia, where, in the evening, tool place the first training session, one fully open to the public and to the media. After 5 days of training close to Bucharest, the players arrived in Cluj-Napoca yesterday morning. Out of the 26 football players called in the first stage, coach Daum was able to keep only 23 players for the match against Mount Negro.
7 presences at the final tournaments of the World Cup
for the national team in its history: Uruguay 1930, Italy 1934, France 1938, Mexico 1970, Italy 1990, USA 1994 and France 1998. At global level, 23 national teams have more presences than the Romanian one
“I promise I will do whatever is needed to qualify to the World Cup in Russia. We must believe that we can get there. We have to be united in order to succeed. I want fans to identify themselves with the players, to feel that the football players are playing for them. We are all Romania!”
Christoph Daum, Coach of the Romanian team
“All matches are a final. We must look at each match as a decisive one. The match against Mount Negro must be won because there will not be a redo. Step by step, we will gather points and we will get to the World Cup”
Christoph Daum, Coach of the Romanian team
WE START WELL
Out of the 16 preliminary matches for the qualifying rounds to the World Cup, Romania only lost three! And it had 10 victories and 3 draws. At home, the success rate is even better. The national team started home the preliminary matches for a world tournament 8 times, winning 7 matches. The only match lost was against Lithuania, in September 2008.
Spies amongst them
Of all the players called to the national team of Mount Negro in the last year, 5 are teammates with Romanian football players. Thus, at Karabukspor, in Turcia, Vladimir Rodici playes next to Valerica Gaman, Marius Alexe, Ionut Neagu, Cristi Tanase and Iasmin Latovlevici, in Israel, at Hapoel Tel Aviv, Marko Simici playes with Claudiu Bumba and Liviu Antal, at Rijeka, in Croația, Marko Vesovici plays next to Florentin Matei, and in Italy, at Fiorentina, Marko Bakici is a teammate of Ciprian Tatarusanu (photo).
