An evening that was looking promising was unfortunately spoiled by things beyond our team’s control. The match Politehnica Timisoara – Petrolul Ploiesti, in the 17th round of League 2, was interrupted twice due to technical problems in the night of the stadium “Dan Paltinisanu”. In the 36th minute, just after the second interruption of the match, the referee, Iulian Călin, decided to stop the game for good.

Tonight’s match started quite spectacularly, both in the stands and on the pitch. First the night went out in the 7th minute. The match resumed after ten minutes, but the problem was only temporarily solved. After coming back from the dressing room, the white-violet team held their opponents well and created chances. The first great chance of goal belonged to Oanea, whose shot was hardly saved by Avram. On the counter-attack the guests could have scored through Bratu, in the same 24th minute of play, but he rushed in front of the goal. Unfortunately, the efforts of those who worked for a good restart of the season were blocked by elements beyond their control.

In the 36th minute the night stopped again and the match referee decided to end the game, with important consequences for our club. A decision on this matter will be taken by the Discipline and Ethics Committee of the Romanian Football Federation.

POLITEHNICA: Păduraru – D. Radu, Mera (captain), Scutaru, Pamfile – D. Andrei, Ignea, Lazăr, Oanea – Ursu. Rogosic. On the bench: Devenish-Meares – Bocșan, Plumbuitu, Zaluschi, Iamandache, Sîntean, Gerbi, Olariu, Vukoje. Coach: Nicolae Croitoru.

Petrolul: Avram – Pîrvulescu, Huja, Vrhovac, Țicu (captain) – Cebotaru, Seto – M. Bratu, Tucaliuc, Dr. Gheorghe – Diarra. On the bench: Moroz – Boțogan, Jarovic, Mih. Constantinescu, Saim Tudor, Prejmerean, Alb. Olaru, V. Lică, M. Chindriș. Coach: Nicolae Constantin.

“A very sad evening and… it looked sad since last night, because last night we also came to training and we didn’t manage to train because of the night. So the problems were there. Of course there were some fears. I said last night: what happens tomorrow if it falls again… but it happened. It’s a shame, it’s a shame because it was a tough game, we’re in the situation we’re in and we just can’t defend our chances and earn those points. Maybe we didn’t win them today, but at least we had a chance to fight for them and I think as long as we played we showed that on the pitch. Unfortunately there are things that are out of our control and we can’t control them (…) What interests me now is that there are some players in the dressing room, who, for sure, are frustrated, they would have liked to play, they would have liked to win the points on the pitch, they prepared for it for so long and they didn’t have the chance. I think that’s what matters”, said Nicolae Croitoru, head coach of Politehnica.

“As long as we played, 31-32 minutes, we played a good game, against a valuable opponent, the best in League 2, we created some goal situations and some important situations, I think it was a promising game from this point of view… It’s clear that (the players) need to be rebounded, we have two more very difficult games ahead of us. We have the trip to Chiajna, we’re going to a re-match so to speak, we can’t call it a game. We’ll keep on training and we’ll stay focused on the problems we have to solve…”, said the white-violet coach.

We remind you that the owner of the arena is the Timis County Council, here is the message he sent to the media after the match:

“The electrical installation is old, it seems that there is a short circuit in one or more poles of the night. We will thoroughly assess the situation tomorrow to identify the source of the outage, with the intention of permanently repairing the fault. We regret the situation and apologise to the public and the team.”
Our club will take a “cold” look at what happened tonight and will take the necessary decisions in the coming period.

Photo: Sebastian Tătaru