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Nicolae Dică to Catania

June 26th, 2008 | By: j | 8 Comments »

Very exciting news to report as an agreement has been reached that sends midfielder Nicolae Dică to Catania of Serie A from Steaua Bucureşti. Nicolae has been with with Steaua Bucureşti since 2004 and appeared in 124 matches. There had been intense speculation of him possibly heading to the likes of either Dynamo Moscow, Lille OSC or Aston Villa but the move to the beautiful Sicilian city reunites him with coach, Walter Zenga, who had worked in the past with. Catania narrowly escaped relegation last season with a brilliant survival fight which included draws with Roma and Juventus in the final two matches of the campaign.

Tags: Catania, Italy, Nicolae Dica, Serie A, Team News, Walter Zenga

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Comments

By julien | June 26th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

j, are you going to continue your review? you did part 1. what about part 2?

Posted from United States

By j | June 26th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

Julien…I appreciate your comment but where is the flair for drama? Of course I’ll release part 2 my friend and in fact there are quite a few parts to the story : )

Seriously, I’ll post part 2 and 3 shortly just as I get a few more answers re developmental work.

Posted from Germany

By julien | June 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am

How is the Romanian Liga I Realitatea by the way? What do you think of this attendance number?

“It was reported that during the 2006-07 season 1,657,602 tickets were sold for the 306 games played, giving an average attendance of 5,417 spectators per match” (Wikipedia.org).

Posted from United States

By Tomis | June 27th, 2008 at 8:35 am

Rumor has it, Zenga wants Lobont at Catania, as well. I think Lobont can do better than that…

Posted from United States

By j | June 27th, 2008 at 9:14 am

Julien - while I know attendance isn’t what we’d like to hear of with Liga I the play and development of the domestic talent can’t be ignored particularly as you consider the overall international ranking. These statistics also somewhat distort that Bucharest, a city of under 2 million people supports three superb franchises.

I think the success of the international play is somewhat dependent upon a greater junior development program and a modest influx of foreign players but I wish to stress only modest as it should never take away from local players. This is shown easily through the rosters of last seasons champions, CFR Cluj which had a decidedly more international (South American in particular) mix as opposed to Steaua Bucureşti, Rapid Bucureşti and Dinamo Bucureşti which are decidedly domestic.

Posted from Germany

By j | June 27th, 2008 at 9:26 am

Tomis - I hadn’t heard that but that would make a great deal of sense for Catania given their tactical style as Bogdan Lobonţ would be a great ‘keeper for them.

Posted from Germany

By Tomis | June 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

Sports rags in Romania now write Lobont is wanted by AC Milan (see http://www.prosport.ro/fotbal-intern/liga-1/o-pisica-intre-diavoli-2749783). Ancelotti was in Bucharest for the Euro final, and met with Giovani Becali (Lobont’s agent?) regarding this. Caveat emptor: Romanian sports rags are notoriously unreliable (that’s why I call them “rags”).

Posted from United States

By cata | July 7th, 2008 at 8:21 am

imi pare bine pt dica ca a plecat pt ca io fost destul la steaua eu is fana dica si nu ma intereseaza unde merge tot fana lui ramna nu ca alti ii bun knd da goluri si gand nu da ii huiduit mi se pare un lucru ilegat.si campionatu romanesc era prea slabut pentru dica asa ca sunt fana lu dica pana la moarte

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