Manager Edward Iordănescu and goalscorer and captain Nicolae Stanciu spoke to the media today after Romania’s unexpected and impressive 3-0 victory over Ukraine.
Stanciu’s stunning opener in the first half was followed by goals from Răzvan Marin and Denis Denis Drăguș as Romania started their EURO2024 journey with their first win at a European Championship since 2000.
What did Iordănescu say?
Embed from Getty Images“It’s a memorable victory, a historic victory, for the Romanian people.
“It was a fantastic effort by my team – if you had any doubts, I think you can believe me now that this is a great team.”
Speaking passionately about his side’s efforts today, he said: “Since I joined the national team, I’ve had difficult moments. It’s not always been easy. We’ve had other big performances. We’ve had golden generations with big performances, but this generation represents the soul. This team has put the biggest effort into everything. As big a heart as this team, nobody has ever had. This generation is limitless.
“These lads have done so much, they ran until they just fell over and I had to take them off. It was an incredible effort – apart from the quality and talent, they were very united and gave their all and I am very proud of them.”
He added: “I can’t promise results. I can’t give any guarantees. What I can guarantee is that this team has soul and gives their all.”
Looking ahead to their next fixture against group favourites Belgium, he said: “The next game will be a very difficult one against a team that wants to win the trophy, so we have to work as a team and that will help us. After that we will see, we’ll take it step by step.”
What did Nicolae Stanciu say?
Embed from Getty ImagesCaptain Nicolae Stanciu will dominate headlines after his fantastic opener, capitalising on a mistake by Andriy Lunin and burying his effort in the top left corner.
“It is the goal of my career – I’ve said before this shirt means everything for me and to score at the EURO finals, you can’t do more than that. And then to also win in the manner that we did, how we fought, that’s just incredible.”
He praised the unity of his side, saying: “I said from the very beginning with the qualifiers, this is our strength – we are a family. And now you saw yourself what that means and that it really is like that.
“This is our power, we are like brothers both on the pitch and off.
“[The support] was unique, we’ve never felt anything like this before. My siblings, my father and my wife all had tears in their eyes. I’d like to thank them all and I hope we’ve made them very happy today. We have to thank everyone and I hope they’ll celebrate. What we did today was just sensational.”
Finally, the captain looked ahead to their next game: “I know myself and I know my teammates, so I know that we’re not going to celebrate after this win – we are only going to concentrate on Belgium now.”
Follow reaction from the Ukrainian manager Serhiy Rebrov, and every game of EURO2024, here on FromTheSpot.