ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The article contains a detailed description of the Romanian national football team at European Championships. Romania took part in the final round of the European Championships for the fifth time in 2016.

The national team at European Championships

Summary

Romania took part in all the European Championships, but only reached the finals five times, of which once in eight and 24 and three times in 16 participants.

EM 1960
For the European Football Championship in 1960, which was still held as the “European Cup of Nations”, Romania, which was coached by Augustin Botescu, was drawn in the round of 16 against Turkey and won on 2nd. November 1958 the first leg in Bucharest 3-0, with Nicolae Oaidă scoring the first European Championship qualification goal for Romania. In the second leg on April 26, 1959, it became exciting again: After 13 minutes, the Turks were able to use a penalty kick, which lefter Küçükandonyadis turned 1-0, and he succeeded in the 54th. Minute also the 2:0. But it was not enough for more and Romania was in the next round. In the quarterfinals, Czechoslovakia was the opponent and Romania lost both games. This ended the European Championship for Romania, Czechoslovakia was then third in the final round in France.

EM 1964
Four years later, more teams wanted to participate than in 1960, so a preliminary round was placed before the round of six. In this, the Romanians, who were trained by Constantin Teașcă after the missed qualification for the 1962 World Cup, met Spain. After a 0:6 in Madrid, to which the Romanians also contributed the last goal, his term was over. Under his successor Gheorghe Popescu, who was already his predecessor, they won the second leg with 3:1, but that was not enough to come to the final of the sixteen. Spain then also reached the final round, was allowed to host this and won the title for the first time. Popescu then ceased his work as national coach and became president of the Romanian Football Association in January 1963.

EM 1968
For the European Football Championship 1968, group matches were set for the first time in qualifying. The Romanians trained by Ilie Oană had to compete against Italy, Switzerland and Cyprus. Romania won only the two games against Cyprus and the home game against Switzerland, but lost the other games. There was no point in the fact that after the 1:7 against Switzerland Angelo Niculescu had taken over the office of national coach for the last match. So they were second behind Italy, which did not lose a game. Italy then also qualified for the final round, was able to take advantage of it and became European champion with los Glück. Niculescu then managed to lead Romania back to the World Cup after 32 years, where the team failed to defenders England and the later world champion Brazil.

EM 1972
For the 1972 European Championship final, Romania could not