Marked for Claudiu Mihaila
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Nov 2026
The cup run ends for Viitorul
0‑2 against CFR Cluj, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Dorin Marin breaks a bone — 19 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Florin Ştefan 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Ovidiu Mitrita 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marius Ratiu, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.08, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Viitorul, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market14 Sep 2026
The deal that would have taken Cosmin Iancu to Botosani has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Viitorul with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ovidiu Mitrita 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and Viitorul are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to FCSB to sit and watch. I want to come back to Viitorul and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Eduardo Fonseca has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Eduardo Fonseca 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marius Marin 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Viitorul, another week without a signature from Aly Abeid.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Claudiu Man
7.50, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Viitorul had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Eduardo Fonseca asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bogdan Man commits to Viitorul for another 1 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ianis Stanciu has his answer from Viitorul; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
4.66. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.