Romania continues on downward slide

Romania’s dark slide from in World Cup qualifying with a morose 2-1 loss to Austria in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. Ranked by FIFA twelfth in the world last June, the storied nation of brilliant Footballers has fallen to eight spots and is likely to head into a steeper drop after losses to Serbia and once-minnows Austria. Since December of 2004, the former Steaua Bucureşti great Victor Piţurcă has done a remarkable job with the Tricolorii but with these results many question if the Federaţia Română de Fotbal (FRF) will move to replace him.

Romania was troubled from the get-go as they were without the services of Fiorentina’s Adrian Mutu and Universitatea Craiova’s Florin Costea. Austria, who were without talisman goal scorer Marc Janko, captain Andreas Ivanschitz, Alexander Manninger and György Garics, were quickly on their heels as Romania looked for an opening. After a early miss, Romania took the lead twenty four minutes in as Argeş Piteşti young midfielder Cristian Tănase chipped the ball over Austrian ‘keeper Michael Gspurning from thirty metres. Disaster struck for Romania the briefest of moments later as Răzvan Raţ and Gabriel Tamaş contributed to providing the ball to Rapid Wien’s promising striker “Jimmy” Hoffer, with the Austrian making no mistake. The Rapid Wien man completed his double a minute before the break with an extraordinary one-man effort before sending the ball past Bogdan Lobonţ. In the second forty-five Dorel Stoica, Marius Niculae and Maximilian Nicu were all introduced with an eye towards the goal and although Romania came within a whisper of scoring, it was not to be in a 2-1 loss. As the match concluded, Victor Piţurcă walked off in what is very possibly his final match for Romania as hopes for the World Cup fade to black.