The Astra Chronicle
Squad30 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vlad Iancu
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Astra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match30 Aug 2027
Every point is an argument now for Astra
Position 9 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Vlad Iancu keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Astra may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Alexandru Puscas 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 Astra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Nobody could get near Aymen Boutoutaou
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match28 Aug 2027
A bad afternoon for Astra against Universitatea Craiova
0‑1 to Universitatea Craiova, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Florin 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 ratings30 Aug 2027
Claudiu Maxim takes the honours
Marked 7.21 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Astra had the best player on the pitch.
Market30 Aug 2027
No place for Nicusor Marin in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nicusor Marin has his answer from Astra; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
- Market The Ovidiu Ratiu talk will not go away
- Market Nicusor Balasa leaves for nothing
- Player ratings Andrei Mitrita spends the afternoon fouling