Best chances to become coach of Romanian National Team: 1. Hagi 2. Boloni

"The King" Hagi is preffered as a succesor to Victor Piţucă at the National Team's helm. Boloni is believed to use the offer as a pretext to get a higher wage somewhere else

Today's match might be the last for Victor Piţurcă at the helm of the national team. He intends to leave even if he should win, and if he were to lose against Austria, his contract would be terminated immediately.

Hagi to coordonate all squads

Mircea Sandu, the Romanian FA chief, is determined to discuss with Gheorghe Hagi about a very ample project. Hagi would become national team coach, but also at the same time, he would coordonate all the national squads at all youth levels. He would name all coaches and will decide on squad strategies so that they coincide up to tactical decisions in all national levels

A key advantage for Hagi is the fact that he is not contractually bound at this moment and thus the FA doesn't have to wait for him to finish his engagements.

"He's proved he has an eye for youth, for discovering talents", was Mircea Sandu's opinion about Hag when he shared with some close acquaintances recently. That's another asset in Hagi's favour, Romania's national squad being scheduled to enter a recontruction phase.

Boloni is also having talks with Belgium!
Ladislau Boloni was also wanted by Mircea Sandu. The first obstacle, besides his large wage demand and difficult negociation style, was his bad relationship with Ionuţ Lupescu, general director in the Romanian FA. "He had his chance at the national team, but he left", was Lupescu's point of view during many discussions.

Another problem came up when Romanian officials started suspecting that Boloni is using the FA offer to negociate better contracts from other sides. A coupe of days ago the Belgian newspaper Het Laaste Nieuws wrote that Boloni is in talks for the national squad of Belgium. He is also said to negociate with O. Marseille.

A fight for Il Luce
Nominated among those that are wanted to take Piturca's place at the national squad, Mircea Lucescu is also a top target in Turkey. According to Fotomac newspaper, he's a top candidato for Galatasaray and Fenerbahce: "No matter what you try, still Lucescu's the man". (Beniamin Osman)

They want Hagi
Gigi Becali, Steaua owner and a good friend and chat partner of Victor Piţurcă, confirmed yesteday that Hagi is Mircea Sandu's favourite: "I know he's planned, appoint him and be over it. He's a disaster as a coach, he's got nothing on Piturca. But he's a "king", so he can be anyway, even stupid".

“Nobody from the Fed spoke with me. I don't think it's the right moment for me to come back to the national squad”

“If a team like Serbia, which didn't play anything, scores 3 against us, you can imagine how difficult this situation is. We must have hope, still”
GHEORGHE HAGI,  former coach of România

5 matches was Hagi's record as Romania coach. He won a match, got 3 draws and a defeat

13 matches was Boloni record with Romania, with 8 wins, 2 draws and 3 defeats