Romania’s national football team was defeated by the Netherlands 3-0 (0-0) on Tuesday at the National Arena Bucharest in a friendly match.
The Netherlands, a team that also misses the World Cup2018, won due to the goals scored by Memphis Depay (47th min.), Ryan Babel (56th min.) and Luuk de Jong (81st min.). This is the first defeat for Coach Cosmin Contra in four games.
Coach Cosmin Contra: the defeat in the friendly match against the Netherlands is “a welcome cold shower”, but said that Romania did not play so badly to deserve to lose 0-3.
“I do not know if I was wrong with the line-up, I made changes, assumed this risk. I changed eight players against the match with Turkey, I wanted to see more players. We tried to make the same pressing, but the Dutch players got out of the pressing and had many attacks, furthermore Bălaşa got injured before the match, and that was a handicap, the plans were over and I had to improvise.”
Cosmin Contra hopes the players will not repeat the mistakes in the future.
Dutch Coach Dick Advocaat: “You never know what to expect when you play away against Romania. They played very well in the friendly match against Turkey, so we did not expect to win so easily 3-0 in Romania. It is a good feeling to come back home knowing that in the last eight games we have won 7. It’s a good morale to take it from the beginning.”
Attendance: 26,000
Teams:
Romania: 1. Costel Pantilimon — 20. Sergiu Hanca (11. Gabriel Torje, 63rd min.), 6. Vlad Chiricheș (captain), 4. Cosmin Moți, 24. Cristian Ganea — 7. Alexandru Chipciu, 5. Ovidiu Hoban (8. Mihai Pintilii, 74th min.), 17. Eric Bicfalvi (29. Denis Alibec, 66th min.), 28. Florin Tănase (10. Gheorghe Grozav, 63rd min.) — 14. Constantin Budescu (23. Nicolae Stanciu, 46th min.), 19. George Țucudean (9. Florin Andone, 46th min.). Coach: Cosmin Contra.
The Netherlands: 1. Jasper Cillessen — 2. Joel Veltman, 3. Matthijs de Ligt, 4. Virgil van Dijk, 5. Nathan Ake — 10. Davy Proepper (14. Marco van Ginkel, 62nd min.), 6. Daley Blind (18. Quincy Promes, 87th min.), 8. Kevin Strootman (captain; 17. Tony Vilhena, 77th min.) — 7. Steven Berghuis (15. Donny van de Beek, 82nd min.), 9. Ryan Babel (19. Luuk de Jong, 62nd min.), 11. Memphis Depay (20. Wesley Sneijder, 61st min.). Coach: Dick Advocaat.