Marked for Cosmin Dragusin
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
Cosmin Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
41 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad21 Dec 2026
34 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Ovidiu Stanciu 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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Lisandru Olmeta
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch21 Dec 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Pandurii, and 2 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Dec 2026
A European night to forget for Pandurii
0‑4. Sunderland play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A one-man rearguard from Matei Popa
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pandurii lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match12 Dec 2026
Chastening afternoon for Pandurii
A 0‑4 beating by Young Boys was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Bogdan Deac beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Cristian Licsandru 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom14 Dec 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cosmin Dragusin
31 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ovidiu Stanciu 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Matei Popa: “I am not a substitute”
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Pandurii will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Pandurii
Bogdan Mihaila 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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
When it matters, Bogdan Deac plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market7 Dec 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
39 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pandurii lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match28 Nov 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Stefan Mihaila will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Pandurii escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Match28 Nov 2026
A European lesson for Pandurii
2‑3 against NK Domzale. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A brace, and Stefan Mihaila takes the afternoon — 8.46
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Stefan Mihaila provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 7.70 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Bogdan Deac 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
OB made Pandurii work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Cosmin Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 46 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
64 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Bogdan Deac in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Pandurii
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Licsandru was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Loan watch23 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Viitorul to sit and watch. I want to come back to Pandurii and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ouattara Moudjatovic is on it.
Market23 Nov 2026
Paul Deac told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Paul Deac has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Pandurii.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Adrian Tanase knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pandurii, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market23 Nov 2026
Bogdan Deac linked with a move away
The name of Bogdan Deac keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Pandurii say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cosmin Dragusin
53 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.
Match14 Nov 2026
0‑5 to Astra, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match14 Nov 2026
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.
Match14 Nov 2026
4 matches without a goal for Pandurii
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Pandurii
Bogdan Deac and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ovidiu Stanciu 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lisandru Olmeta, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
A one-man rearguard from Matei Popa
There were 15 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
61 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pandurii lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑4 by Estoril Praia, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match7 Nov 2026
Pandurii beaten on the continent
0‑2 against Sion, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Pandurii
Bogdan Deac 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.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
Pandurii supporters have found a favourite in Matei Popa
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Matei Popa has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Looking ahead9 Nov 2026
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Licsandru 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cosmin Dragusin
68 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match2 Nov 2026
Pandurii are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 27 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Ouattara Moudjatovic 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.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.34, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Looking ahead2 Nov 2026
The big one: FCSB come into view
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Pandurii will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
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Squad
A month that belonged to Matei Popa
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
A one-man rearguard from Matei Popa
There were 14 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Cosmin Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 75 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Pandurii beaten on the continent
1‑2 against Sion, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Match24 Oct 2026
1‑3 to Estoril Praia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Match24 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Botosani, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicusor Nedelcearu 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A mark of 7.77, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Loan watch26 Oct 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Pandurii, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pandurii lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Matei Popa: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pandurii have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Bogdan Deac beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 26. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match17 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Pandurii's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pandurii has to find a result from somewhere.
Match17 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Pandurii
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pandurii can tell you which week it ends in.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
He is 21 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Pandurii
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Licsandru was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Stefan Balasa 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.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Lisandru Olmeta
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Stefan Mihaila has become a man the manager trusts
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2026
Cosmin Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 89 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑4 by Universitatea Craiova, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad12 Oct 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Lisandru Olmeta is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Pandurii know it.
Boardroom12 Oct 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Ciprian Nedelcearu to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Pandurii
Something was said to Cristian Licsandru and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
11 saves: Matei Popa was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Cosmin Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 96 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match5 Oct 2026
Pandurii refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 20 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Adrian Tanase 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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matei Popa, and the manager let it.
Match5 Oct 2026
Pandurii at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 3, 20 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Pandurii dressing room in a hurry
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Squad
Nicusor Nedelcearu falls out with a teammate over standards
-
The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cosmin Dragusin
104 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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.
Match26 Sep 2026
CFR Cluj made Pandurii work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Pandurii
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Licsandru was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match28 Sep 2026
The half-term report on Pandurii
Position 3, 19 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.94 on the card, and the Pandurii support went home talking about one name.
Loan watch28 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Viitorul to sit and watch. I want to come back to Pandurii and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Ciprian Nedelcearu could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
111 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pandurii lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match19 Sep 2026
Pandurii do the business in Europe
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Pandurii came through the finding-out well against NK Domzale.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Bogdan Deac beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 35. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑4 to OB, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nicusor Nedelcearu did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Pandurii
Ouattara Moudjatovic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.