“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Botosani, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Botosani close the window on a squad of their own making
18 in and 9 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Botosani are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botosani, another week without a signature from Zoran Mitrov.
In brief
The dugoutEnriko Papa knocks on the manager's door
The dugoutNarcis Ilaş has become a man the manager trusts
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The offer from Universitatea Craiova for Ştefan Bodişteanu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Everything agreed with Universitatea Craiova, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
7.62, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The offer from Astra for Darius Fălcuşan was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The offer went to Astra this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Add another name to the list: Pandurii have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tudor Băluţă. The answer from Universitatea Craiova has not changed — yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $881.2K — a club that wants Mihai Balasa enough to be asked twice.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The chase for Andrei Dumiter ended with $420.0K changing hands and Botosani out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Adrian Rus and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.