FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) – Romania’s poor record at the Euros improved on Wednesday when a 1-1 draw with Slovakia sent both sides into the last 16, and the Romanians topped the group having secured only their second win at a European Championship.
The recent history of Romania at major tournaments makes for depressing reading. They have not reached a World Cup since 1998 and their last, and only previous win at the Euros came in 2000, the only time they have advanced past the group stage.
Group E was on a knife-edge going into the final games, with all four sides level on three points, and Romania top on goals scored thanks to their 3-0 win over Ukraine.
That was only their second victory at the Euros in 19 games, while they had suffered 11 defeats, and despite a 2-0 loss to Belgium in the second game in Germany, they were set to advance barring defeat by Slovakia combined with Belgium not winning.
In Frankfurt, despite the driving rain and thunderstorms, both sets of fans celebrated wildly at the final whistle.
Both sides knew a draw would be enough to take them through, but neither Romania or Slovakia stuck to the expected game plan as both pressed hard for a winner.
Slovakia made the breakthrough with Ondrej Duda’s goal, but Romania levelled thanks to a penalty converted by Razvan Marin after Ianis Hagi was fouled, a name which brings back memories of Romania’s golden period in the 1990’s.
Ianis is the son of Gheorghe Hagi, dubbed the “Maradona of the Carpathians”, who was Romania’s playmaker when they advanced from the group stage at three successive World Cups between 1990 and 1998.
Hagi senior planned to retire after the 1998 tournament but returned for Euro 2000, the only other time Romania got past the group stage after securing their only previous win with a 3-2 triumph over England.
Romanian fans have suffered since, watching successive sides fail to qualify for World Cups and rare Euro appearances ending prematurely.
Romania did top their qualifying group to reach Euro 2024, but failed to win any of their four warm-up games, and there was a fear this tournament would see history repeating itself.
Instead, history was made, and both Romania and Slovakia will hope for a return to the days when they challenged top sides at international level on an equal footing.
Czechoslovakia won the Euros in 1976, and finished third on two occasions, but since independence in 1994, Slovakia have reached one World Cup and had to wait until 2016 to make the Euros.
Now, their third successive European Championship is full of promise, having shown their quality in defeating Belgium, and both they and Romania will feel they have plenty more to offer at the tournament.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Ed Osmond)
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