* r e c. Sport. Soccer ' s
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| So, Switzerland to win Group A, Colombia to finish runners-up with Romania
progressing as one of the best third place teams. ===============================================================================
Mauricio Pardo =============================================================================== COACHES : Francisco Maturana and Hernan Dario Gomez GOALKEEPERS: Age Caps Goals 1. Oscar Cordoba America de Cali 24 33 0 12. Farid Mondragon Argentinos Juniors (Arg) 22 2 0 22. Jose Maria Pazo Junior de Barranquilla 30 1 0 DEFENDERS: 2. Andres Escobar Nacional de Medellin 26 53 1 3. Alexis Mendoza Junior de Barranquilla 32 41 1 4. Luis Fernando Herrera Nacional de Medellin 31 60 0 13. Nestor Ortiz Once Caldas 25 6 0 15. Luis Carlos Perea Junior de Barranquilla 30 79 2 18. Oscar Cortes Millionarios 25 2 0 20. Wilson Perez America de Cali 26 49 4 MIDFIELD: 5. Hermann Gaviria Nacional de Medellin 24 8 1 6. Gabriel Jaime Gomez Nacional de Medellin 34 49 1 8. Harold Lozano Nacional de Medellin 22 16 2 10. Carlos Valderrama Junior de Barranquilla 32 69 6 14. Leonel Alvarez America de Cali 28 71 1 17. Mauricio Serna Nacional de Medellin 26 13 0 19. Freddy Rincon Palmeiras (Bra) 27 43 12 FORWARDS: 7. Anthony De Avila America de Cali 31 39 11 9. Ivan Rene Valenciano Junior de Barranquilla 22 19 7 11. Adolfo Valencia Bayern Munich (Ger) 26 18 11 16. Victor Aristizabal Valencia (Spa) 22 22 5 21. Faustino Asprilla Parma(Ita) 24 14 4 Colombia has qualified only for three world cups, 1962 in Chile, 1990 in Italy and now for the 1994 USA world cup. A new style to Colombian soccer began in 1987 when Francisco Maturana was appointed as coach. He was a disciple of the late Oswaldo Zubeldia (the legendary coach of Estudiantes de la Plata, during their reign as the leading international team of the late 60s and early 70s) and consolidated a philosophy of attacking and skilful soccer in the best Latin American tradition.
draw 1-1 with the eventual champions West Germany in a very exciting game and lost 1-0 against Yugoslavia. These results were good enough to progress to the second round where Colombia me the Indominatable Lions of Cameroon. The game was fairly dull and it was no surprise to find the game going into extra time with the score 0-0. Roger Milla came on as a substitute for Cameroon and scored before Rene Higuita, hailed as the World's premier sweeper-keeper tried to beat Milla, 10 yards outside the penalty area and was robbed allowing Milla to make the score 2-0. Colombia scored a late consolation but were out of the World Cup.
places) and Colombian scorers: vs Chile 1-0 (Asprilla) vs USA 2-1 (Valencia, A.Garcia) vs Venezuela 0-0 vs Venezuela 1-1 (A. Garcia) (this game was in Venezuela) vs Chile 1-1 (Aristizabal) vs Chile 1-0 (Asprilla) vs Brazil 1-2 (Lozano) vs France 3-1 (Valencia 3) (game in Martinica) Three friendlies against U.S.A in U.S.A in 1993, Colombia won all three games 2-1, 1-0, and 3-1. American Cup (Copa America) (1993) First Round: vs Mexico 2-1 (Aristizabal 2) vs Bolivia 1-1 (Orlando Maturana) vs Argentina 1-1 (Rincon) Quarterfinal vs Uruguay 1-1 (Perea) Semifinal vs Argentina 0-0 (lost 4-5, free kicks after 90 min. draw) Third Place vs Ecuador 1-0 (Valencia) World Cup 1994, Qualifying games. vs Paraguay (in Colombia) 0-0 vs Peru (in Peru) 1-0 (Rincon) vs Argentina (in Colombia) 2-1 (Valenciano, Valencia) vs Paraguay (in Paraguay) 1-1 (Rincon) vs Peru (in Colombia) 4-0 (Valenciano, Rincon, Mendoza, Perez) vs Argentina (in Argentina) 5-0 (Rincon 2, Asprilla 2, Valencia) Pre World Cup Friendlies. 28.1.94 Venezuela A 2-1 (Valenciano, Trellez) 9.2 94 Saudi Arabia A 1-0 (Aristizabal) 18.2.94 Sweden Miami 0-0 20.2.94 Bolivia Miami 2-0 26.2.94 South Korea H 2-2 3.3.94 Mexico A 0-0 7.4.94 Bolivia H 0-1 17.4.94 Nigeria Armenia 1-0 3.5.94 Peru Miami 1-0 5.5.94 El Salvador Miami 3-0 3.6.94 N Ireland Foxboro 2-0 (Perez, Valencia) 4.6.94 Greece New Jersey 2-0 (Gaviria, Rincon) The problem for Colombia before the qualifying games was their difficulty in scoring despite a well planned strategy of skill, short passing and swift attacking. However, by the end of the qualifying tournament, the Colombian style looked pretty good as they qualified with ease. The goalless draw against Paraguay in the first qualifying game raised the problem of the Colombians difficulty in scoring, but the next game against Peru in Lima was won 1-0 with several crucial players injured and this seemed to be the catalyst in recovering the players' confidence. For the first game against Argentina, the two defensive midfielders, Alarez and Gomez were injured and Maturana decided to experiment with two younger more attacking players, Gaviria and Lozano. The outcome was a Colombian victory which led the press to champion this more risky attacking line-up. However, Alvarez and Gomez were recalled for the next game in Paraguay for their strength and experience and Colombia drew 1-1.
against Peru and then the result that shocked the World, a 5-0 win over Argentina in Buenos Aires. At last the three strikers playing in Europe had gelled in the National side and Colombia had a team to be proud of.
He is currently carrying a knee injury from the friendly with Sweden in February, but hopes to be fit in time. Colombia's playmaker is a fantastic passer of the ball and it is crucial to the Colombians that he is on top of his form.
Scored the equaliser against Germany in the last World Cup finals that took Colombia through to the second phase. A pacey forward with plenty of skill.
A rangy and highly skilled striker who has caused all sorts of havoc for Parma, he looks very awkward on the ball but this is just hiding his deceptive skill. He can beat players and shoots from anywhere - the only criticism of his game would be that he tends to hold onto the ball too long.
His scoring record of 11 goals in 18 internationals speaks for itself - a very dangerous striker who is likely to torment defences this summer.
A far more orthodox goalkeeper than Rene Higuita. ===============================================================================
COACH: Anghel Iordanescu GOALKEEPERS: Age Caps Goals 1. Florin Prunea Dinamo Bucharest 26 23 0 12. Bogdan Stelea Standard Liege (Bel) 27 14 0 22. Stefan Gabriel Preda Petrolul Ploiesti 21 0 0 DEFENDERS: 2. Dan Petrescu Genoa (Ita) 27 30 3 3. Daniel Claudiu Prodan Steaua Bucharest 22 12 0 4. Miodrag Belodedici Valencia (Spa) 30 29 4 6. Gheorghe Popescu PSV Eindhoven (Neth) 27 42 2 13. Tibor Selimes Cercle Bruges (Bel) 24 9 0 14. Gheorghe Mihali Dinamo Bucharest 29 18 0
5. Ioan Lupescu Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 25 27 3 7. Dorinel Munteanu Cercle Bruges (Bel) 26 25 2 8. Iulian Chirita Rapid Bucharest 27 1 0 10. Gheorghe Hagi [C] Brescia (Ita) 29 82 21 15. Besarab Panduru Steaua Bucharest 24 11 0 18. Constantin Gilca Steaua Bucharest 22 4 0 19. Corneliu Papura Univ. Craiova 20 1 0 20. Ovidiu Stinga Univ. Craiova 22 9 0
9. Florin Raducioiu AC Milan (Ita) 24 22 10 11. Ilie Dumitrescu Steaua Bucharest 25 38 11 16. Ioan Vladoiu Rapid Bucharest 26 5 0 17. Dinu Moldovan Dinamo Bucharest 21 2 0 21. Marian Ivan F.C. Brasov 25 0 0 General Information ------------------- Population: 23.000.000 The Football Federation: founded 1909, affiliated to FIFA since 1930 and to UEFA since 1955 Number of teams cca. 5800 Registered players: cca. 180.000
---------------- Romania has produced some brilliant sport stars such as the gymnast Nadia Comaneci or the tennis player Ilie Nastase. In the international arena the Romanian athletes have produced a lot of good results in sports like gymnastics, rowing, track & field, weightlifting, boxing, wrestling and fencing. The handball team was 4 times World Champion and the volleyball team have won the European title. There is no doubt that football is the most popular sport in Romania with average attendances at matches amongst the highest in Europe. Romanian Football History ------------------------- Football has been played in Romania since 1893, but the first organized teams appeared in 1899-1900. The first championship was held in 1910 and the national side made their debut in 1922, a 1-2 defeat by Yugoslavia in Belgrade. The first Romanian Cup Final took place in 1933. At club level, Steaua Bucharest have been the most successful, winning 15 championships and adding the European Champions Cup in 1985-86, after a penalty shoot-out with Barcelona. After 2 hours of football, the game was a 0-0 stalemate, but although Steaua only scored twice from the spot, Barcelona failed to score at all, all four attempts being saved by Duckadam, the hero of that night. Steaua Bucharest also reached the Champions Cup semi finals in 1987-1988 losing 2-0 on aggregate to Benfica, and made the final again in 1989 losing 4-0 to a rampant AC Milan. Other teams that have done well in European competition are Universitatea Craiova who lost on the away goals rule in the semi final of the 1982-1983 UEFA Cup, beaten by Benfica, and Dinamo Bucharest who have been knocked out of both the Champions Cup and Cup Winners Cup at the semi final stage by Liverpool (1984) and Anderlecht (1990) respectively.
four Europeans teams that crossed the Ocean in 1930 to take part in the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay. King Carol of Romania proved to be a hero by not only picking the Romanian team, but ensuring that the players were given adequate time off work in order to train for and play in the finals. They beat Peru 3-1 and lost to the eventual winners, Uruguay by 4 goals to nil.In 1934 in Italy, the Romanian team was beaten 2-1 by the eventual finalists Czechoslovakia after leading 1-0, and in 1938 Romania were surprisingly eliminated by the Cuban team, losing 2-1 after drawing 3-3.
WW II, but after the war the country had to wait until 1970 before their team qulified again. A very young team, coached by Angelo Niculescu, succeeded in January 1969 to draw 1-1 with the World Champions, England at Wembley and soon afterwards they won their qualification group ahead of Greece (2-2 in Greece and 1-1 in Bucharest in the decisive game), Switzerland (2-0 at home and 1-0 away) and Eusebio's Portugal (0-3 in Lisbon and 1-0 in Bucharest). In Mexico they played in the toughest group together with the reigning Champions (England), the eventual winners (Brazil) and Czechoslovakia, who had appeared in the final 8 years earlier. After losing 1-0 to England, they beat Czechoslovakia 2-1 with goals from Neagu and Dumitrache, and lost to Pele's Brazil 2-3 (Dumitrache and Dembrovschi, the scorers). They failed to qualify for the second phase and their coach was criticized by the Romanian media for the team's lack of courage against England and the non selection of the nation's most gifted player, Dobrin (a kind of Gazza of Romanian football). The best Romanian players in the tournament were Ion Dumitru in midfield, the sweeper Cornel Dinu and Emeric Dembrovschi in attack. The same remarkable team won their group in the European Championships ahead of Czechoslovakia, Wales and Finland and were very close to the semi-finals in 1972, after a dramatic three game series with Hungary (1-1 in Budapest, 2-2 in Bucharest and 1-2 in the play-off in Belgrade). The Hungarians scored the decisive goal in the 88th minute of the third game. After 1972 a long string of disappointments were to follow, with Romania failing to qualify for the 1974 World Cup finishing second behind East Germany, and repeating this 4 years later by losing an incredible match against Yogoslavia in Bucharest 6-4. This qualification had started promisingly for Romania as they beat Spain 1-0 in Bucharest and had a sensational 2-0 victory in Yogoslavia, but Romania had to settle for the runners up spot again. The qualification for the World Cup in 1982 was lost in a similar way as Romania took 3 points from England (2-1 in Bucharest and 0-0 at Wembley), but couldn't beat Hungary at home and suffered a shocking home defeat, 2-1 to Switzerland. Unsurprisingly, the coaches were dismissed and the young trainer Mircea Lucescu, the captain of the 1970 team was appointed. He was only 36 and was still an active player at his club, Corvinul Hunedoara. This is a unique case in football history - an active player also operating as national team coach.
qualifying as they were in a group with Italy (reigning World Champions), Sweden, Czechoslovakia (1976 European Champions) and Cyprus. However, Romania qualified after conceding only 3 goals in 8 games. Unfortunately, the team was far from impressive in the finals in France where they lost to West Germany and Portugal and drew with Spain. Their performance in qualification though was enough for them to be favourites to qualify for the 1986 World Cup.
Wembley), and had few problems with Finland and Turkey, but qualification was lost when they soemhow managed to lose all four points to Northern Ireland. In Belfast, Northern Ireland were victorious 3-2, but the crucial game was in Bucharest where a draw would have been enough to take the Romanian side through. However, the game was lost 1-0 and the only hope was that England would beat the Northern Irish at Wembley, but the English offered the qualification to Northern Ireland by drawing 0-0. History repeated itself as Romania had got into a good position to qualify before losing a crucial match on home soil. Seven months later came Romanian soccer's big triumph, Steaua Bucharest's Champions Cup victory and their coach, Emeric Jenei replaced Mircea Lucescu as head of the national team, bringing with him the offensive spirit of Steaua. This was reflected in the 1988 European Championship qualifying when Romania just failed to qualify after winning all their home matches impressively, 4-0 against Austria, 5-1 against Albania and 3-1 against Spain (the group winners). After this, the long string of failures in World Cup qualifiers came to an end, the crucial games being against Denmark in the autumn of 1989. In Copenhagen the Danish side won 3-0 and when Povlsen scored in Bucharest after only 5 minutes it looked like another disaster for the Romanian squad, but this time they managed to score three times winning 3-1 and qualifying for the first time in 20 years. The coach Jenei was praised for picking 26 year old striker Gavrila Pele Balint, who scored twice in his first international.
then lost to the tournament's surprise team, Cameroon 1-2, Balint scoring. The final group game was against World Champions Argentina and Balint scored again in a 1-1 draw. This put Romania through to the second round as group runners up behind Cameroon. The second round game was against Jack Charlton's Ireland and after a scoreless game, Ireland won 5-4 on penalties. As in 1970 the Romanian fans had the feeling that the team was capable of doing better.
players too and most of the stars that played in the World Cup finals moved abroad: Gheorghe Hagi to Real Madrid, Gheorghe Popescu to PSV Eindhoven, Marius Lacatus to Fiorentina, Ionut Lupescu to Bayer Leverkusen, and the young Florin Raducioiu to Bari. This created a new situation for the national side as players ceased to be available two weeks before every important game - this created a problem for the coaches: select the overseas based players who would not have the benefit of a fortnight with the national side before a game or reward those who had stayed in Romania.
paid a big price for not knowing how to solve these problems: he was forced to resign after a disastrous start in the European Championship, particularly a humiliating 0-3 home defeat by Bulgaria. The new coach, Mircea Radulescu managed some good results, but in the last game of the qualifiers Romania required a 2-1 away win over Bulgaria,but only managed to draw 1-1 (Hagi missed a penalty kick). Mircea Radulescu resigned a few months after that and was replaced by the controversial Cornel Dinu. Qualification to USA --------------------- In the spring of 1992 Romania started the campaign with an easy 7-0 (Balint 3, Hagi, Lacatus, Lupescu, Pana) victory in Bucharest against the Faroe Islands. The second game was also played in Bucharest and the first half ended with the Romanians holding an incredible 5-0 lead against Wales! The game ended 5-1 (Hagi 2, Lupescu 2, Balint) greatly boosting Romanian hopes. In the autumn, Romania visited Brussels and despite having a number of good scoring opportunities, they lost 0-1. The same lack of effectiveness lead to a 1-1 draw at home to the Republic of Czechs and Slovaks (RCS), Ilie Dumitrescu scored after the break, but the visitors equalized with a penalty in the dying minutes of the game. A 4-1 win in Cyprus ended the year (G. Popescu, Raducioiu, Hagi and Hanganu the scorers).
scoring both goals and in June the team suffered a disaster playing the Czech and Slovak team in Kosice. Raducioiu equalized RCS goals twice, but despite the expulsion of 2 RCS players, Romania went on to lose 2-5. A 2-5 defeat was hard to swallow and led to the end of the international career of the veteran goalkeeper Silviu Lung and the dismissal by the Romanian Federation of coach Cornel Dinu, who was replaced by Anghel (Puiu) Iordanescu who had coached Steaua Bucharest to their most recent Romanian title. Iordanescu was aware that he had a very tough task ahead.
striker, Raducioiu, Romania entertained Belgium in Bucharest. The Belgians needed a draw to assure their place in the USA finals, but the Romanians won 2-1 to keep their own hopes very much alive. The first goal from a Raducioiu penalty and the same player assisted Ilie Dumitrescu in scoring the second. The Belgians narrowed the margin with an 89th minute penalty, but could not prevent Romanian victory.
against Wales in Cardiff. The game produced great drama with both teams needing victory for qualification. Romania controlled the game for virtually the whole of the first half, but only held a 1-0 lead at the break, a drive from Hagi in the 32nd minute. Wales equalised through Dean Saunders in the 62nd minute and a minute later the hosts were awarded a penalty. Peter Bodin stepped up to take it but clearly couldn't handle the pressure as he blasted the ball against the bar. After this disappointment for the Welsh, the Romanians came back strongly, finally securing victory in the 83rd minute through Raducioiu. The Welsh might claim bad luck, but on the night Romania deserved their victory. So, Romania qualified to the World Cup for the second time in succession, their 29 goals in qualifying sharing the record with the Dutch. Preparation ----------- Hong Kong 13 Feb 94 Romania 2-1 USA South Korea 16 Feb 94 South Korea 1-2 Romania Belfast 23 Mar 94 Northern Ireland 2-0 Romania Bucharest 20 Apr 94 Romania 3-0 Bolivia Bucharest 25 May 94 Romania 2-0 Nigeria Bucharest 1 Jun 94 Romania 0-0 Slovenia The coaches ----------- Anghel (Puiu) Iordanescu was born in 1950, in Bucharest. Since the age of 12 he played for Steaua Bucharest, making his first team debut at the age of 18. He was considered to be one of the most gifted players of his generation, but injuries delayed his debut in the national squad until 1971. He was capped 64 times in the national squad scoring 26 goals (only one player in the whole history of the squad has scored more). With Steaua Bucharest he was 2 times champion and won the Cup 4 times. In 1982 he went to Greece and played until 1984 for OFI Creta. On his return to Romania, he was appointed as the assistant coach of Steaua. Together with the main coach, Emeric Jenei, Iordanescu led Steaua to the great successes of 1984-1986 that culminated with the winning of the European Cup. On the day of the final with Barcelona, Iordanescu was 36 and everybody was surprised to see him enter as a substitute. He had not played an official game since 1984 and was only supposed to play for a maximum of 15 minutes, but he played the whole of extra time and showed again, for the last time, his wonderful skills as a player. In the autumn of the same year, when Jenei was appointed as manager of the national team, Iordanescu became Steaua's main coach and some excellent results were to come (including the winning of the European Super Cup, reaching the semifinals of the Champions Cup in 1988 and the final one year later).
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