Jun
17
Romania’s Biggest Game in Years
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Romania hasn’t been the biggest name in soccer and frankly none was talking about them before the start of this tournament and now it seems they are the center of attention. They have played two games with two great results in both the games, now all they need to do is beat the Netherlands. If they beat the Dutch squad then they will be moving onto the quarter-finals. The Dutch team has already clinched first place in the group so it will be hard to say who will be playing for them come game time.
I couldn’t imagine that Van Basten would take the risk of playing all of his starters simply due to injuries and penalties. The last thing the Dutch team needs is a suspension heading into the quarter-finals and I think this could help the Romanian team out a lot. It’s also been said numerous times this past week that the Dutch team would much rather face Romania deep in the competition rather then possibly playing either France or Italy. Now I don’t think this means that the Dutch will throw the game, but I do think it will be low scoring and if the Romanians can get an early lead then they might be able to hang onto it.
The worst thing that could happen for the Romanian squad is for the Netherlands to jump out to an early lead, because we’ve already seen what they do with a lead. The Romanians I think surprised themselves by tying both France and Italy and it will take a huge game from them to beat the Netherlands but with everything riding on it I’m sure it’ll be a good game. Adrian Mutu has been the star for the Romanian squad this year and has been playing awesome. If only Mutu was able to score the penalty kick against Italy they wouldn’t even need the win today.
Group C will be decided today as all four teams hit the field. I know I’ll be watching them both to see how the action goes but I definitely hope to see that the Romanians move onwards. In a group with so much talent it’d be amazing to see Romania move on. The Netherlands already surprised everyone by clinching a spot in the quarter-finals and now the Romanians can make that look minuscule.