Politehnica Timisoara will play on Saturday in the 3rd stage of the second league play-out. The opponent will be Unirea Slobozia, and the match will be played away from home, from 11 am. The only unavailable players are Ignea (injured) and Huminic (recovering).

In the Group A standings, Poli is in 7th place, last, with 16 points, while Unirea Slobozia is in 1st place, with 32 points, and is already mathematically saved from direct relegation.

Statements from today’s press conference:

Paul Codrea, Politehnica coach: “We have a very tough match ahead of us, as they all are for us, given our place in the standings. But we talked in the dressing room, we have an objective, we know that we have to give everything in every match. Let’s try to win every game, playing well, with initiative. And that’s what we’ll try to do in Slobozia. Even if the opponent is valuable, we know that, they missed the play-off in the last match, they led for a long time, it seems that they were also on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place. It was always in the top six until the last round. I feel sorry for them, but that’s it, they form a good, compact team. We have prepared for the match and hope to play our game, like we did against Csikszereda.

Of course, when you win the atmosphere is always good, but even so, we tried to remain honest, optimistic and realistic, because mistakes were made with Csikszereda. We also had moments where we suffered and we tried to correct as much as we could this week. Even though it was a strange week, we also had this changeable weather. One day we didn’t train, we didn’t go out, one day less training. Tomorrow we leave in the morning, no training again. But we’re not looking for excuses, we’ve prepared as much as we can prepare and I think we’ll have a good game out there. Tuesday, we did gym.

Only Alin Ignea is missing, I think he has a knee problem, but I think next week he will be fit. 100%.

Armin Mada is in the squad for this match. He was in the junior team. He needed to play there. He’s a young kid, a promising kid, but he has some shortcomings, like all youngsters, we try to correct them. They need games, through rotation the youngsters will come into the squad. And whoever is not in the squad will go and play for the juniors. The important thing for them is not to keep them here, to have a few minutes and get out of rhythm. They have to play. And Armin was at the last junior game, he played. Now Eric Adam went, Boariu, and we’ll rotate them. There’s (now) Oprea, he was also on the bench last game, he didn’t get to start, and Mada, Țurcaș and Marincu, they’re juniors.

…I don’t know now what their objective is. Given that they missed the target, I think they’ll experiment. Maybe they’ll play players who haven’t played, maybe they’re strategizing for next year, I really don’t know. So, they don’t look bad, from the pictures I saw at the last game, they didn’t look bad. They look like a motivated team, now we’ll see on the field how it will be. But the point is what we do and not what they do.

We decided to do it (the trip) first time and we do. Tomorrow morning at 8am we leave and hope to be there by 8pm. It’s long, but we’re not making excuses now. And it’s a long way to Bucharest and we went to the Dinamo game first thing and they played very well, I mean they performed well. So it can be done. We’re not looking for excuses on the long road. It matters, but we try not to look for alibis and talk on the pitch. We’re going to do a little bit there, a little bit of a wind-down when we get to the hotel.

I don’t know what he’s referring to (editor’s note – Luchin, in the “Football West” interview). I’ve been to the stadium almost every day. I missed another day, two days, and I was generally communicating. With Tavi Benga I was really talking all the time. Indeed with Luchin I talked less, but I think Tavi was more important there. (n.r. – About Luchin in the staff) He didn’t want to stay. We’re staying like this.

Cătălin Oanea, Politehnica player: “As Mister said, we have a very tough match ahead of us, a very long trip. But the match against Miercurea Ciuc gives us some hope and we are going there to win. Because it’s the only thing that helps us in the standings. We are optimistic and we take each match one by one. We play every game to win. And we hope to do well in the end.

Clearly we’re thinking about saving ourselves from relegation. Because it would be the second relegation in a row, although last year we were saved. I hope that by the end we can save ourselves. Let’s wash away this shame at the end somehow.
Somehow I see the players more motivated. Last year there was such a mood in the team, they weren’t as motivated, we got into a rut we couldn’t get out of. Now I see my teammates differently and I think that in the end it will be good.
My contract expires in the summer.”