Euro 2016 Preview–Romania

Oh shit, I better get started on the Euro posts I said I might do. Let’s see when the first match is… this afternoon? And Romania’s playing in the opener? Well I better get this done now!

For the geographically lacking folks/everyone who gets confused by all the eastern European countries, Romania is an actually large country in southeastern Europe by the Black Sea. It has a population of about 20 million, and its capital, Bucharest (not to be confused with the capital of Hungary, Budapest) is… the sixth-largest city in the EU. The population’s about 2 million. Why didn’t I know that? I’m a quarter Romanian, have I listened to nothing from my grandfather other than how the Soviets are bastards and how fortunate he was to escape and how my great-grandfather spent time in prison for holding onto my grandfather and his brother’s gold baptismal coins and how many times he’s told me that his violin which I now occasionally play bears a Romanian customs stamp and to keep the bridge even though it warped and I had to change it and he got a little mad about that because any other bridge he said wouldn’t be as good? (Though honestly the new one isn’t as good, it’s a little muffled in the lower register now… I’m rambling again.)

The most famous Romanian may be the infamous Vlad III, the prince of Wallachia better known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler). He killed people in some cruel ways, but since it was in defense of Wallachia from the Turks he has been romanticized heavily in Romanian poetry and history over the years.

It’s also well-known for its province of Transylvania, where all the vampires are claimed to be (I can neither confirm nor deny this), and for terrible person Nicolai Ceausescu who ruled Romania from 1965 until the Romanian Revolution of 1989 where he was overthrown and executed. The most famous Romanian sportsperson is Nadia Comeneci, the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics, with NBA player Gheorghe Muresan coming in second for being really tall. Romania has also given us the greatest car in history according to Top Gear, the Dacia Sandero. Influential artists include Eugene Ionescu who wrote theater of the absurd work Rhinoceros and violinists/composers Grigoras Dinicu and George Enescu.

All right, on to the footying, shall we?

Apparently Romania is ranked 22nd in the world by the magical FIFA rankings, so hey, that’s not bad! But that’s good for the *goes down the list* 15th-best ranking in UEFA, so for the purposes of this tournament that probably isn’t good and I wouldn’t put a heap of money on them making a run. The Tricolorii missed the 2012 Euros, and in 2008 finished third in their Group of Death (behind the Netherlands and Italy but ahead of France). Their last World Cup appearance was in 1998 where they were knocked out in the Round of 16 by Croatia, and their best was a 1994 World Cup quarterfinal appearance which included beating Argentina in the Round of 16 (see the banner image). There needs to be a better thing for that round, I think in debate tournaments there’s something like octofinals, which just seems like a lot of fun to say. Octofinals.

I could list a full roster player by player with their teams, but most of the squad plays for Romanian teams including Steaua Bucurest (2nd in Romania’s Liga I) and Astra Girgiu (1st in Liga I). One of the keepers plays for Watford but didn’t play in a Premier League match, one plays for Fiorentina and actually saw time so I’m guessing he’ll be Romania’s #1, the captain (defender Vlad Chiriches) plays for Napoli, and they’re a good team, so that explains why he’s the captain, another defender plays for Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia, and… that’s it for players playing in major European leagues and clubs.

Romania is in Group A, opening up their slate against France this afternoon and then take on Switzerland and Albania. France is the host country and it’s the opener, so I’m gonna chalk that up to a loss unless they can steal a goal in the early home-team jitter phase, in which case maybe they can steal a point, probably not all three. The Swiss will be tough and that will be like playing another road game, so I’ll chalk that as a loss. They’re higher in the rankings than the Albanians, so that’s promising, so… best case scenario 4 points and a trip to the knockouts. Worst case scenario, 0 points, somehow losing to Albania. That would be embarrassing. I’ll say 3 points, a win over the debutants to save face and finish 3rd in the group, but not enough to make the octofinals.