The coach of Romania's soccer team, Victor Piturca, was dismissed today by the country's Football Federation (FRF) following a more than certain failure to qualify the team for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, declared for NewsIn Dumitru Dragomir, head of the Professional Football League (LPF).
Former
national team coach Anghel Iordanescu said that he did not wish to
comment on the dismissal but added that the local championship has at
least five potential coaches for the now vacant position.
Former
coach for the national team, Standard Liege's Ladislau Boloni declared
for NewsIn that he regretted the FRF action as Piturca is not the sole
person to be blamed for the poor results of Romania's team in the
preliminary games for the World Cup. Boloni refused to make any
comments on the possibility of coming back at the helm of the national
team.
Proposals for a new coach will be received until May 10.
FRF
general manager Ionut Lupescu declared that the federation will offer
Piturca 250,000 euros to end the contract. Piturca had inked a contract
until 2010, with an annulment clause of around 600,000 euros.
Romania's
star player Adrian Mutu, currently scoring for Italy's Fiorentina,
thinks the dismissal of the coach was not necessary and says he regrets
it.
Team
captain and currently Inter Milano player Cristian Chivu said that the
team has to do its job regardless of who is appointed to replace Piturca.
Player
for Romanian team FC Arges, Cristian Tanase declared that Piturca's
dismissal comes as very bad news to him, especially as Piturca was the
one to promote the young player for the national team.
Victor
Piturca was appointed coach at the national team to replace Anghel
Iordanescu after the team scored a 1-1 with the representative of
Armenia in the qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Piturca
helped Romania make it to the 2008 European Championship after a
ten-year break. But our country was drawn in a group with stronger
teams like Italy, France and the Netherlands and failed to qualify for
the next round.
In
the current qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup, the Romanian team
performed very badly and is currently ranking fifth in the group, with
just four points after five games played. The chances of qualifying for
the final tournament are almost null.
