Messi may spend Easter in Romania

Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi, the world's greatest footballer, may spend the Easter holidays in Romania, it was revealed today (Weds).

The information was made public by the president of the local council in Suceava in northern Romania, Gheorghe Flutur, who said that Messi was going to visit the Bukovina region.

Flutur added that Messi was coming at the invitation of former Romanian international Gica Popescu, who played for Barcelona in 1995-1997.

No further details were provided about Messi's schedule.

Bukovina is a region in northern Romania famous for its colourful 14th-century monasteries.

On UNESCO's list of world heritage monuments, they are unique in the world for their architecture and the paintings on their facades.

Romanian international praised by the German press

Romanian international Ciprian Marica was praised today (Tues) by the German press for having scored five goals this year in the Bundesliga for his team Vfb Stuttgart.

Marica scored two goals at the end of last week in a match with Hanovra.

The German newspaper Bild wrote about the "miraculous" Marica: "It looks like Marica, it talks like Marica, has always been said. But now, there is a new Ciprian Marica, the one we've been seeing in the last three months."

Under new coach Christian Gross, Marica is playing well. Before this season, he had scored only five goals in 56 matches in the Bundesliga.

Marica transferred to VfB Stuttgart in 2007 for 8.3 million Euro from Shakhtar Donetsk and was often criticised by the German press, which considered the transfer a bad one. Until now.

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Romania to face France in Euro 2012 qualification competition

"Romania, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belarus, Albania and Luxembourg will play in Group D in qualifying competition for Euro 2012.

















A draw for qualifying competition occurred yesterday (Sun. Feb. 8th) in Warsaw, Poland.

The Romanian delegation to Warsaw included national football team coach Razvan Lucescu, general manager and secretary general of the Romanian Football Federation Ionut Lupescu and Adalbert Kassai, respectively, and federation sports director Daniel Prodan.

Each team in the qualifying groups will play one another on a home-and-away basis. The competition will start in early September 2010 and conclude with playoffs in November 2011.

Euro 2012 co-hosts Poland and Ukraine will qualify automatically, along with the nine group winners and best runner-up, and the other eight second-place sides will engage in playoffs in November 2011."
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HAI ROMANIA!

I honestly think we can do much better than our horrible performance during the World Cup 2010 European Qualifiers, that was absurd. I also don't think Lucescu is a good coach, I think he's a terrible manager and Petrescu or someone of the like should be managing Romania. He made horrible player selections and tactics and training and all that, clearly didn't do much good for us. I hope we can change that in the Euro 2012 Qualifiers and get our revenge on France, one of our biggest rivals at the moment!*

*We've played them three times in less than two years (Euro 2008 and the WCQs [2 times]).

D. Niculae scores to give Romania the win

Daniel Niculae scored in the 59th minute to give Romania the friendly international win over Poland.















Romanian Lineup - Pantilimon - Maftei, Rădoi, Chivu, Raţ - Roman, Apostol, Codrea, Tănase - Niculae, Marica.
Reserve: Coman, Săpunaru, Ghioane, Varga, Neşu, Goian, Nicoliţă, Andrei Cristea, Bucur, Grigore, Galamaz.