Basescu is the president of the country, I wouldn't consider his opinion on football all that relevant About Piturca - if i remember correctly, he once said something like "If we manage to beat France, qualifying to the next stage would be alot easier", and that could have been mistranslated. However, nobody in the football business in Romania ever said anything about beating *any* team in the group easily. At best it's a very controller optimism, something like "hey, anything can happen, it's a very hard group, but we're no push-overs right now, we'll play our chance to the end". And Piturca would NEVER say anything too optimistic - he's the kind of coach that speaks little, and considers every "little" team a threat - if anything, he was pissed off when people said that Belarus was a small team we'd have no problem beating. And the whole team is now built on the same principles he holds dear - iron discipline, hard work and team play.
Why all this posturing from the fans? Everyone knows that every single game in this group could be hotly contested. Every single game.
That's fine, that's the Dutch posters. However, am I to take it that you feel that every single other poster that posts from overseas is that same as those Dutch posters?
Dude, you apparently missed my posting in the Dutch forum during the Romania match pre-WC. When the US qualifies for the Euro let me know. I've got my reasons for supporting Romania and have done so passionately. Passionately enough to travel to Holland to watch their match during qualifying. It's weak that instead of arguing points or what not you want to draw on the fact that I'm an American who happens to support Romania along with my country. If you can't get over it that's fine, but your opinion rarely brings anything to the table anyway.
My opinion is that Romania will finish last in Group C. We'll see in 2 weeks if I'm "bringing anything to the table"
I think it'll be the Dutch and the Italians who make it out. I actually think it's the Dutch who have the best chance of finishing at the top of the group.
Because I don't see how whether or not a person is of a certain descent can either validate or invalidate his opinion. I've followed Romania for years. I really don't see how it would be different if I'd said I'm of Romanian descent. I have my reasons and I don't see why it is even part of the discussion.
I don't think the question was meant to validate or invalidate you or your opinion. I think it was just an honest question, posed out of curiosity.
I don't know if you're saying that I'm invalidating anything, but it is not true because I said nothing of the sort. I was just curious.
Fair enough. Maybe I was a little defensive to your inquiry. After all the mud slinging about what a "true" fan is one gets fed up after a while.
You do a fair bit of instigating Toon, and I'm not the only that thinks that (judging by what the Italians say about you). Anywho, I just found this interesting stat. Holland after Germany has the 2nd best win/loss record in Euro history: Not too shabby