More very sane behavior: Player violence ends Romania’s Cluj derby after 30 minutes
May 8, 2012, 9:23 PM EDT
Two years ago I had this minor, illicit affair with Romanian soccer. I developed a weird affinity for Emmanuel Koné. I argued the cases of Adrian and Andrei Cristea, wishing they were brothers (unfortunately, biologically impossible). I was able to watch CFR Cluj win their second-ever Liga, albiet from 6,500 miles away.
Now Cluj has come back into my life, and for all the wrong reasons.
CFR entered today’s Cluj derby against Universitatea with a three-point league lead, though any hopes of extending that margin ended half an hour into the match when Universitatea goalkeeper Mircea Bornescu clobbered CFR captain Cadu.
Context: CFR had been awarded a penalty, which Cadu converted. He celebrated by running behind the goal to play for the crowd, something to which Bornescu took exception. After that … well, you can see the rest:
Bornescu and Cadu both saw red. Going down the tunnel, chaos breaks down. In the aftermath, CFR coach Ioan Andone refuses to put his players back on the pitch, citing concerns for their safety.
You can read more on Radu Baicu’s blog, the scout noting this could be “a great favor” for CFR. For us, it’s just another example of perfectly reasonable, entirely explicable behavior.
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- Liviu Bird - May 8, 2012 at 9:40 PM
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It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if we’ll ever get back to being a decent league/national team and not the butt of every Eastern European soccer joke.
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- Richard Farley - May 8, 2012 at 9:45 PM
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It’s really an under-told story, and if you’ve been following the Liga for a while, I feel for you. My opinion is that Romania isn’t THAT far away, but they’re trending hard in the wrong direction at the some time as a number of countries previously near their level (or, countries that didn’t even exist, before) have started trending up.
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- Liviu Bird - May 8, 2012 at 9:51 PM
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Absolutely. My uncle played in the old Divizia A back in the ’50s, and I’ve been around the Romanian game forever. Unfortunately, Gheorghe Hagi’s thunderbolt of a left foot and the year 1994 are a far cry from the current state of the league, team, and federation. Back then, it looked like we might have something special, but now…who knows?
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- Richard Farley - May 8, 2012 at 9:54 PM
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I never consider if my love of Hagi has led me to follow Romania more than neighboring, similarly-statured leagues. Then again, I didn’t start following Turkish football more when he started coaching again (this latest time).
It’s only very recently that I’ve looked at Romania’s national team and thought “they’re going to need some luck to qualify.” Up until, maybe, the last WC qualifying cycle, I always thought they had avenues to at least the playoff.
Maybe I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
