From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Pandurii's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pandurii has to find a result from somewhere.
Market21 Sep 2026
Mihai Tanase 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 Pandurii can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cornel Râpă 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nicolás Brun 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Viitorul left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Mihai Marin
“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.
Back issues
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Cornel Râpă 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
Nicolás Brun 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.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Tommaso Giuliani 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cornel Râpă, 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
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 ratings14 Sep 2026
5.33. 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
Match7 Sep 2026
Every point is an argument now for Pandurii
Position 10 and 2 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Mihai Nita 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 Pandurii can pretend not to have heard.
Match5 Sep 2026
7 matches without a win for Pandurii
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Pandurii are no longer polite ones.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Mihai Marin 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Pandurii will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Match5 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Renatinho 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolás Brun, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match29 Aug 2026
The wait goes on for Pandurii
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market31 Aug 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Cornel Râpă 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 ratings31 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ianis Nita gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sergiu Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Pandurii
1‑3 against Voluntari, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market24 Aug 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Mihai Nita, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Pandurii's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pandurii has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mihai Marin 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cornel Râpă 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergiu Dragusin
24 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Dynamo Kyiv pay $2.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mihai 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Voluntari left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renatinho 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergiu Dragusin
32 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Claudiu Bancu yet — 8.43
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.43 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mihai Tanase commits to Pandurii for another 4 years.
Match8 Aug 2026
1‑3 to Universitatea Craiova, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Cornel Râpă 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 ratings10 Aug 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Florin Mitrita has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Pandurii.
Market10 Aug 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mihai Tanase’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sergiu Dragusin
39 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 31 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market3 Aug 2026
Bournemouth come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Pandurii did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A first appearance Stefan Man will want to forget — 5.72
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.72, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
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
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Claudiu Bancu and Pandurii agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Mihai Marin 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cornel Râpă 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.