Marked for Andrei Puscas
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Dec 2027
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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Mohamed Koumaré damages knee ligaments — 57 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
Market6 Dec 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Binga can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Dec 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad6 Dec 2027
19 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match4 Dec 2027
Djoliba left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
The one thing Laid Ayad could not do
Shots: 6, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Marked 5.60, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Sep 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Dragos Stanciu 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.
Market13 Sep 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Pandurii will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match11 Sep 2027
FCSB left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Loan watch13 Sep 2027
“I did not go to Dinamo Bucharest to sit and watch. I want to come back to Pandurii and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Ninety minutes of Cristian Maxim at his very best
Marked 8.08. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pandurii.
Squad13 Sep 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andrei Puscas and Pandurii agree another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Aug 2027
84 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Vlad Chiriches out for 20 days
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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Razvan Hagi 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 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lassana Faye and Pandurii agree another 4 years.
Match31 Jul 2027
Dragos Stanciu scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to CFR Cluj, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
Dragos Balasa damages knee ligaments — 45 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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
Andrei Puscas: 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.
Market21 Dec 2026
Razvan Hagi wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pandurii hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Nov 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 Pandurii, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Age has not caught Dragos Balasa yet — 7.90
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Razvan Hagi 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Dragos Balasa scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to FCSB, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmytro Ledvii 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matthijs van Nispen, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
5.58. 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Sep 2026
8 matches without a win for Pandurii
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Pandurii are no longer polite ones.
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 Pandurii, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Sep 2026
Razvan Hagi wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pandurii hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Razvan Hagi 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andrei Puscas and Pandurii agree another 2 years.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Razvan Tanase, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
A bad afternoon for Pandurii against Astra
0‑1 to Astra, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.