Marked for Ciprian Chiriches
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Jul 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Pandurii may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
Bogdan Bancu, 34, rolls back the years — 8.04
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.04 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match29 Jul 2028
4 matches without a win for Pandurii
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pandurii are no longer polite ones.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Răzvan Creţ is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Cristian Ratiu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Jens Cools falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Match29 Jul 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market31 Jul 2028
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Cristian Mitrita leaves Pandurii the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 May 2028
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pandurii lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad15 May 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pandurii will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 May 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pandurii this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 May 2028
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pandurii lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad8 May 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pandurii will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad8 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bogdan Vătăjelu commits to Pandurii for another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 May 2028
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pandurii lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad1 May 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pandurii will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 May 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pandurii this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Apr 2028
Mohamed Hamdy Zaky damages knee ligaments — 58 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 58 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pandurii will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Cristian Ratiu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Apr 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad17 Apr 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pandurii this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jens Cools 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.