OK, so the football season is over for Rapid Bucharest. Even though the fans hopped for a qualification in the Europe Conference League, a kind of Intertoto Cup, this never happened, after two brutally abnormal defeats in the last two matches, against FCU and CS Mioveni, two “umplutura” teams, as we say in Romania. Of…
Category: Football
Rareș Ilie, the fans and a flag that has nothing to do with football
About Rareș Ilie I’ve spoken to everybody I know since almost two years ago. When I saw him in his first matches at Rapid Bucharest and after hearing him talk and watching him act. His physique is impressive, his technique outstanding. He was only 17 years old back then. Two seasons on and he topped…
World Cup 2022, Qatar – what to expect?
Football became more and more weak in terms of expression, of quality, of color. Already wrote about this, now I’ll point my finger on the World Cup 2022 from Qatar, which will be played in an unusual place, in an unusual time period. For more details linked to the way the tournament was awarded, go…
New Giulești opening day: expectation
26th of March 2022 will remain always and forever in the history of Rapid Bucharest, as the day when the new Giulești stadium will be officially opened, with an 8 hour event, topped by a friendly game with Poli Timișoara, a second tier squad about which I will discuss separately why I don’t consider to…
Adrian Mutu, the giant with legs of dust – about Rapid Bucharest
Fists pressed in the air, Adrian Mutu celebrates the third victory in a row as Rapid Bucharest coach. The percentage is beautiful, but the truth is far from glamorous. Rapid beat Academica Clinceni, 1-0, their second victory in the same manner since Mutu joined the club, against the same opponent. In between, there was a…
Gianluigi Buffon will “play” football until 46 years. At least!
Recently, Gianluigi Buffon signed a contract extension with Serie B, Serie C wanna be, Parma. His childhood club… OK, it is nice, in some aspects, that Buffon, the legendary Italian keeper will be active for so long. Not really… I mean, OK, it is nice to remember Buffon from 2000, 2003, 2006, even 2012 or…
Adrian Mutu coach at Rapid, before the inauguration of New Giulești Stadium
Rapid Bucharest is about to play its first game on Giulești Stadium, the new version, on 26th of March. It will happen with Adrian Mutu on the bench, the new coach. After 29 matches in Liga 1, with one more game to go from the regular season, Mihai Iosif was changed. OK, no big deal…
Marius Șumudică, the hot potato next to Rapid Bucharest
Days before the match between Rapid and Dinamo, Marius Șumudică, probably the best Romanian football coach of the moment – and I am not joking – put his guns, metaphorically speaking, on Daniel Niculae and Mihai Iosif mostly. Not very polite. OK, this is it… Their problem… I don’t forget, though, one year and something…
How can we still love football?
I’ve starting watching football in 1998. Enjoyed thousand of football matches on screen, hundreds from the stadium, but as years went by, my passion decreased and not because I’ve changed some priorities, because the level of the game dramatically went to the floor. I’ve tried, after some large breaks, to watch a full match: PSG…
Mihai Iosif, what it takes to be a football coach
Motivation. It is the key word that gravitates around every successful football club. Others are just, at most, complementary things. Now, the subject, to be clear from the beginning, is Mihai Iosif. A football coach about which Europe heard so little, but whom put a lot of work in re-birthing Rapid Bucharest. I know, this…