Aurel Cicleanu, a well-known Romanian footballer in the past and now an analyst of his country's national team summed up the results of yesterday's match of the 2nd round of Euro 2023 (U-21) between Romania and Ukraine (0:1).
Aurel Ciklianu"First of all, it is important to note what kind of players make up the current Romanian youth team - they are, in fact, still children. The main purpose of this team is to prepare players for the Romanian national team.
However, I believe that our team has played much better this time than in the opening match of the tournament against Spain (0:3, - Ed.).
Yes, I, like all Romanian fans, wish the UEFA team would score more. But look who our opponents are. The current Spanish youth team is a team that has been playing in the same squad for five years. It became European champion in the age categories U-17, U1-9.
And the Ukrainian "youth" team is also quite homogeneous. Not so long ago Ukraine became world champion in the U-20 age category. And let's also not forget that today we opposed the pupils from the academies of FC Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk, with whom Mircea Lucescu was working", said Cicleanu on Romanian TV.
