Position 3, 26 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.
Paul Bancu 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Nicusor Hagi 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.
“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 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicusor Hagi 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.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Nicusor Hagi
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicusor Hagi 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.
Nicusor Marin 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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Nicusor Balasa has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
In brief
SquadA Pandurii teenager takes the young player award
2 behind and going nowhere, until Nicusor Balasa decided otherwise. Astra had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
Position 3, 26 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.
1 for George Deac, marked 7.50, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Marked 9.71 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Pandurii and Dinamo Bucharest, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Bryan Cortés 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nicusor Hagi 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Position 3, 19 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pandurii and Voluntari in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Marked 8.30. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pandurii.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Pandurii man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Nicusor Balasa was the best thing in any of them.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicusor Balasa provided it, and the 8.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Dorin Chiriches, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pandurii and Universitatea Craiova in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Nicusor Hagi 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nicusor Hagi 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.
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.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Pandurii rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and CFR Cluj had no answer to any of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Mihai Burca takes the afternoon — 8.13
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mihai Burca provided it, and the 8.13 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Alexandru Puscas 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicusor Hagi 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.
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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Viitorul will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Daniel Ratiu takes the afternoon — 9.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Daniel Ratiu provided it, and the 9.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 9.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Paul Bancu 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.31 for the rest of it.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Pandurii and Astra, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Marked 8.46. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pandurii.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicusor Hagi 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.
Paul Bancu 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pandurii and FCSB in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nicusor Hagi 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Nicusor Hagi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Voluntari ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Mihai Burca takes the afternoon — 8.30
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mihai Burca provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pandurii can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Daniel Ratiu has come up in conversations Pandurii were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Marked 7.71. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mihai Burca. 3‑1 against Botosani, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
In brief
SquadNicusor Hagi falls out with a teammate over standards