Marked for Andrei Hagi
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Sep 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Petrolul
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Universitatea Craiova, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
The afternoon belonged to Andrei Hagi
A mark of 7.95, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Andrei Hagi named player of the week
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Andrei Hagi has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A Petrolul teenager takes the young player award
Betão is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Market14 Sep 2026
The Daniel Burca story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Daniel Burca signs something — a contract at Petrolul or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A wage question at Petrolul
Betão has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match7 Sep 2026
Petrolul refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 16 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Andrei Hagi takes the afternoon — 9.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrei Hagi provided it, and the 9.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Both of them Betão's — 9.25
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.25, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market7 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 22 days on the sidelines for Javi Zarzo, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match5 Sep 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Petrolul did not have in the autumn.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The crowd has taken to Betão
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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
Petrolul say no — this time
The offer from CFR Cluj for Vlad Tanase was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market24 Aug 2026
Mihai Coman hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Petrolul can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Petrolul sell a favourite for $12.0M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Claudiu Mihaila was one of the reasons people came, and $12.0M does not replace that by itself.
Match22 Aug 2026
Petrolul cannot stop winning
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Andrei 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match22 Aug 2026
Viitorul made Petrolul work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Daniel Burca at his very best
Marked 8.21. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Petrolul.
In brief
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Squad
Betão is the weekend's best young player
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Squad
Petrolul pick somebody else ahead of Mihai Coman
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Player ratings
The pass was always on for Betão
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Vlad Tanase has come up in conversations Petrolul were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match15 Aug 2026
Petrolul cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Cosmin Moldovan 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrei Hagi. 2‑0 against Astra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.00 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Vlad Tanase
“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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Lyes Houri runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match8 Aug 2026
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Claudiu Mihaila decided nobody was going anywhere. FCSB had no time left to answer.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Betão
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Aug 2026
Claudiu Mihaila 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 Petrolul hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Nedelcearu and Petrolul agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Cosmin Moldovan 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
50 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Andrei 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Three points for Petrolul, 1‑0 the final word against FCSB in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A mark of 7.44, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.