Call-ups for France
(Happy Zicu.)
We are playing France in the Stade de France on the 9th, at 21:00 CET. As you know, Romania are the second-worst football team in the world, so we should win this easily.
Here’s the squad:
GOALIES
Costel Pantilimon (FC Timişoara), Bogdan Lobonţ (AS Roma), Ciprian Tătăruşanu (FC Steaua Bucureşti)
DEFENDERS
Cristian Săpunaru (FC Porto), Marius Constantin (FC Rapid Bucureşti), Vasile Maftei (FC Unirea Urziceni), Gabriel Tamaş (West Bromwich Albion), Mirel Rădoi (Al-Hilal Al-Saudi Club), Ştefan Radu (SS Lazio), Răzvan Raţ (FC Şahtior Doneţk), Mihai Neşu (FC Utrecht)
MIDFIELDERS
Mihai Roman (FC Rapid Bucureşti), Ianis Zicu (FC Timişoara), Răzvan Cociş (Al-Nassr Sports), Costin Lazăr (FC Rapid Bucureşti), Iulian Apostol (FC Steaua Bucureşti), George Florescu (Alania Vladikavkaz), Ciprian Deac (FC Schalke 04), Cristian Chivu (FC Internazionale Milano)
STRIKERS
Bogdan Stancu (FC Steaua Bucureşti), Daniel Niculae (AS Monaco), Ciprian Marica (VfB Stuttgart), Marius Bilaşco (FC Steaua Bucureşti
Interesting points about this selection:
1. Sapunaru, Constantin, Radu and *sigh* Apostol have returned to the squad. Not too interested re: the first two. Am crossing fingers that Apostol’s performance will outweigh his bonkers behaviour. Am amazed and rather excited about the return of Radu (who Google Translate, for reasons unknown to me, is now calling “Chris”), since he has been frozen out of the team for the last 1000000 years.
2. Chivu has been listed as a midfielder. Ignoring that.
3. Torje has gone back to the youth team to play England. Sorry, Martha.
4. Zicu’s been called up, which is not surprising since Poli fans have been going crazy over him even more than usual lately.
5. Radoi dislocated his shoulder last week, but might still be able to play. To complicate things a bit more, Al-Hilal initially refused to let him leave because they needed him for an Asian Champions League match. Fortunately for us, they gave in in the end.
6. Florescu remains a fixture despite everyone screaming that he was crap last time he played, and it seems likely that he will still be wearing Hagi’s sacred No. 10. He explained with hilarious honesty that “I am willing to give up the No. 10, but probably no-one else wants it”.
7. Contra is not called up. Want to know why? BECAUSE HE IS NOW POLI’S COACH. (Iancu did his ritual coach-sacking at the same time Contra’s contract expired, so he killed two birds with one stone by making Contra the manager.) Interestingly, we seem to be playing better under him than we did before. Hmmm.