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A look at Romania’s January footballing exports
Either sell high or don’t sell at all – this was Steaua’s approach during the winter mercato, which closed in the top leagues without a concrete move for the highly rated Vlad Chiriches, Cristian Tanase or Raul Rusescu. Becali’s crazy asking prices worked this time in favor of the club that will have the strongest squad in the league and the best position possible to go for the Champions League spot that can be so rewarding, from the financial point of view. CFR Cluj, instead, decided to capitalize on their recent European adventure, and again, it was a wise move. Sell as high as possible, but sell nevertheless! Rafael Bastos, Modou Sougou and Luis Alberto left, a few other regular starters probably just missed out on a move and I am sure CFR regrets not having sold Pantelis Kapetanos, who was signed on a free transfer and has reached a age that will set his market value on a downtrend.
But January was a month that saw a lot of players from Liga I move abroad and I will try to make a short overview of those moves.
Modou Sougou
Age: 28
Position: Right winger
From: CFR Cluj
To: Olympique Marseille
The OM brand and the transfer fee in region of 4 million Euros make this the deal of the month. Sougou’s excellent pace will definitely help him adjust to the new league, but I wonder if he’ll ever be a consistent performer in a demanding championship and manage the pressure of every day life in such a well supported club – the opposite of CFR, who struggled lately even to sell out their Champions League matches. At 28, he’s there to help and there will be no patience or understanding for a player that has to deliver…
Alexandru Maxim
Age: 22
Position: Attacking midfielder
From: Pandurii Targu Jiu
To: VfB Stuttgart
Moving to 1.Bundesliga is a great step for a player who spent a couple of years in Espanyol’s youth setup, but had to return to Romania to get over a long term injury and play senior football on a regular basis. He did it in impressive fashion – one of my favorite players in the league -, but as in other cases this move might find him unprepared. Not because of his skill, but mainly because he still looks a bit below weight and will surely need time & work to be able to compete. Even he’s given credit right away, he cannot go on for 90 minutes and I hope that – in the next few months – he won’t compromise his chance to have a solid 2013/2014 season. Excellent in 1-v-1 duels, he can play anywhere behind the main striker, but has recently surprised by saying that he feels best in a central position, as he made a name for himself starting his runs from the wings.
Rafael Bastos
Age: 28
Position: Attacking midfielder
From: CFR Cluj
To: Al-Nasr Riad
Impressive at times, especially in this season’s Champions League run with CFR Cluj, the Brazilian went for the money and we might not hear much about him in the years to come. Not surprised he struggled to get a chance at a decent European club, he’s been an inconsistent performer in the 2 and a half years spent in Liga I after his arrival from Sporting Braga. A(nother) good deal for CFR, who cashed in over 3 million Euros for a player that came on a free transfer and helped the club do well in the league and on the European stage.
George Tucudean
Age: 21
Position: Striker
From: Dinamo
To: Standard Liege
Scoring 4 times in the second round of the current season brought Tucudean in the spotlight and the media presented him as the next big thing. In the following 16 appearances, he managed to find the net only twice more, stats that speak of a striker who is yet to mature into a reliable front man. Coming from a very wealthy family, the 1,87 powerhouse failed to convince at Dinamo, yet he gets his first break of his career with the transfer to Standard Liege. It probably wouldn’t have happened if Standard’s coach wasn’t Mircea Rednic, who thinks that he can get the big guy going. I doubt it, considering that the move to Dinamo from UTA and the chance to become a regular feature in the youth & senior national team failed to motivate him properly. I doubt that a bigger wage will do it…
Adrian Cristea
Age: 29
Position: Attacking midfielder
From: Petrolul
To: Standard Liege
Rednic swore he wouldn’t sign a player from Petrolul, the club he left to return to Belgium, yet he decided to go for one of the most talented and controversial figures in Romanian football. An authentic number 10, Cristea had everything to make it big, apart from the desire. Signed on loan with an option to secure a good wage for years of quality nightlife 
, he will probably try to show his class and certainly he was brought along by Rednic in the hope that he will deliver immediately. Might help in a couple of games, but so far never showed any awareness that his playing days are coming to an end.
Transfer analysis: FC Timisoara
A more discrete presence on the market than in the past, Timisoara managed to sign three players that were going to play an important part in the first half of the season: Ovidiu Burca, on a free transfer, Helder, on loan from Nancy, and the former Inter Milan signing (back in the days when his huge potential had enough years ahead to be fulfilled), Ianis Zicu. The results were better than ever, with the team finishing the year unbeaten, even after a quite long spell under the command of an unexperienced coach like Cosmin Contra, and this strategy offered the chance to shine to players like Axente or Scutaru, talented youngsters bought a few years ago, who were used to be sent on loan or kept on the bench.
Best transfer Read more…
Shopping in Italy
- Georgian Paun (24) will play for Politehnica Iasi until the end of the season. Initially, the deal was presented as a loan until the summer, but recent reports speak about a definitive move, with Dinamo selling Paun in exchange of the 50% they would have had to pay Poli Iasi in case they would have sold Adrian Cristea (26).
- CFR Cluj finally signed Roberto De Zerbi (30). Demanded by coach Andrea Mandorlini, Napoli’s attacking midfielder is delaying his arrival in Romania, as he’s still nursing an old injury, and the medical problems of the first Italian player to feature in Liga I lead to a strange contract, which states that De Zerbi will get 10.000 EUR for each match played, until the end of the season.
- Second division outfit Universitatea Cluj loaned Josias Basso Lisboa (20) from Reggina, until the end of the season. The Brazilian central defender had been playing on loan at Ravenna, in Serie C, and stated that he was convinced to come to Romania by fellow countryman Gabriel Texeira Machado (20), a striker who surprisingly joined Universitatea, after a short spell in Switzerland, at Grasshoppers Zurich.
Same old problems, brand new hopes
Group D: France, Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belarus, Albania, Luxembourg.
Basically, we’re fighting with Bosnia for the second spot and those who think that this national team can win against the big boys should pray that the point(s) won against France will be enough to compensate those we’ll probably waste against Albania or Belarus…
Focusing on the double against Bosnia, I think that Bosnia has the edge, as football tends to favor those who dare to attack, while Romania has been shaping up as a very organized and defensive team under Razvan Lucescu. And I don’t blame the talented coach, in fact he should be appreciated for acknowledging our new position in football and trying to re-inject the underdog’s mentality, the only one that paid dividends (remember the counter-attacking skills of Italy ’90 and USA ’94!) for a team that, in recent years, lacked the right approach.
Lucescu’s job is to keep the mentality and team spirit that managed to keep France at bay during the last campaign, but find the right approach for the matches Romania will have to win. Oh, and, yes, the right players…
Right now, our NT doesn’t look promising. The only positions well covered are goalkeeper (Coman and Lobont), central defenders (Chivu, Radoi, Tamas, Goian). We also count on Rat at left back, on the likes of Ghioane, Apostol and Tanase in midfield, and on Marica upfront. And I’d take out Apostol and even Marica, although he looks in better shape this year, but, in order to do that, other players must step in and this is Lucescu’s challenge: finding the new wave of players until September and the guts he lacked in the previous campaign, when he should have had a different approach, as the second spot was already lost, when he took over from Victor Piturca. But he went from handing a debut to the promising Mihai Roman (24) on the right wing to recalling veteran Bogdan Mara (32), from changing the team’s atitude to regularly calling the very talented, but also very lazy and inconsistent Adrian Cristea.
So, who will play at right back, can we find someone better than Nicolita on the right wing (Szekely, Roman), can we rely on the fragile midfield pair Ghioane-Apostol in the middle of the park, can we still count on Tanase on the left wing, if Steaua will play him as a mezzapunta, who’s the centre forward that should team-up with Marica, upfront? These are the questions… 
Today’s press
- Steaua seems to have agreed to sign three players, but only one deal has some sort of confirmation so far: the Bulgarian centre-back Zhivko Zhelev agreed to a 10.000 EUR/month contract and will leave his current club, Otelul Galati. In exchange, Steaua will send to Galati the talented left midfielder Razvan Ochirosii (who was “snatched” from the same club by Mihai Stoica, now at Unirea Urziceni), one of the hottest prospects a few years ago, but who never made it among the seniors at Steaua. Otelul gets rid of a problem and also gets 50% of a talented 20 years old. Good deal!
- The other two Steaua targets: Bulgarian striker Hristo Yovov and Rwanda central defender Edwin Ouon.
- Adrian Cristea (attacking midfielder, Dinamo, 26 years old) has been offered to Kuban Krasnodar for 1 mil. EUR. This is no surprise, as Dan Petrescu, the new manager, has been given complete control over transfers and already announced that will try to sign 5 or 6 Romanian players. Cristea is definitely among the most talented, but has an atitude problem and is a gamble Petrescu won’t make. Same situation with Ianis Zicu (attacking midfielder, Dinamo, 26 years old), although Petrescu already tried to sign him when he was coaching Unirea Urziceni, so has better chances. Anyway, it’s going to be a very good month for agents Victor and Ioan “Giovani” Becali .
- Vladimir Bozovic (left back/left midfielder, Rapid, 28 years old) is a target for a French first division outfit, according to his agent, Zvonko Milojkovic. Rapid is in deep financial trouble and owner George Copos has been trying to sell the club (the German businessman Lutz Stache was the last person interested in such a deal), so raising money from transfers looks like the only option right now. Rapid paid 200.000 for his transfer from OFK Belgrade in 2007, but won’t settle for anything below 1 mil. EUR.
- In case Gigel Bucur (striker, FC Timisoara, 29 years old) leaves to club – an offer from Kuban is expected – the Viola outfit will try to sign the Argentinian Pablo Osvaldo Vazquez (centre forward, Strongest, 27 years old).
- The talented Gheorghe Grozav (forward, Unirea Alba Iulia, 19 years old) is very close to a deal with Standard Liege, where he went on trial last summer and left a good impression. The transfer fee: 300.000 EUR
