Politehnica Timisoara qualified for the last 16 of the Romanian Cup after a narrow 2-1 win over Șoimii Lipova. Coach Dorin Toma said after the match that he expects better performances from his young players or players with fewer official minutes.

“It’s a further qualification in the Romanian Cup after a poor game by us in both halves. Unfortunately we didn’t manage the game well enough as we wanted. Even if we changed the team formula and had the chance to play some players who haven’t played at all so far, others have played very little, we want much more from them and that’s why we made these team formulas, to have minutes for all the players in the squad”, said Dorin Toma, Politehnica’s head coach.

“A friendly was missed, but we couldn’t do it playing on Tuesday, if we played the Cup match on Wednesday we would surely find an opponent for Friday or Saturday. We had offers of friendlies with teams from League I, but we had to make the trip ourselves. Taking into account that today we played away and on Saturday we play away, it was too tiring for our team to make three trips in seven days”, explained the white-violet coach why our team didn’t schedule a test on the “free” weekend.

“The important thing is that we qualified, no matter who we play, we will play to win and qualify. We want to have as long a run as possible in the Romanian Cup, we want to bring in teams from League I. And, this match we already forget about tomorrow, as we are preparing for the championship game”, added Dorin Toma.

The “principal” of the white-violet also spoke about Tudor Moțiu, the youngster who brought the victory in the Sânnicolau Mic district of Arad: “He’s a young kid, from 2004, he’s training very well, he played a good game today, which culminated in scoring the goal. We are happy for him, as we are happy for all young and experienced players alike”.