Politehnica Timisoara plays on Friday, April 18, on the field of Miner Lupeni, in the fifth round of the play-off of League 3, Series 9. Prior to this game, the white-violets have a lead of six points over the team from Hunedore, ranked second.

In the previous direct encounters this season, the Alb-violets have won once, in the play-off at home, 3-1, narrowly lost at home in the regular season (0-1) and in the first round of the championship they drew away (2-2).

“We all know that it will be a tough match, because Lupeni at home is a very good team. Not only at home, but especially at home they are very good because they have a big crowd with them, who sing from the first minute to the last minute and that gives a resource of energy maybe even boundless and then they make them much stronger than in the games they play away.

We are not thinking for a second about the lead we have in the standings. We think that every game we have we treat with maximum seriousness and that we can get the maximum out of this game. We are training as well as we have been. We continue to work because there is still a long way to go,” said Cristian Gălan, head coach of Politehnicii Timisoara.

Striker Bogdan Istratie has been training normally lately after the injury suffered almost two weeks ago in Pecica. “We haven’t had any medical problems, we’ve had problems with Bogdan since the match against Pecica, he’s training now, he trained last week as well, but we can’t know if we’re doing something stupid if we put him on the pitch or not, we don’t know exactly yet. We are working every day, everyone is fine and we are ready to play,” said the coach.

Asked about the Easter present that the team could give to the fans, Gălan concluded: “I think that we have been giving presents to the supporters lately and we are glad that we can give them these gifts at the end of the weekend. We hope to have a positive result in this game as well and make our supporters happy. To make us and our families happy, because we have a bank holiday weekend coming up and we want to have a good result for them, so that we can all be happy and celebrate Easter in peace!“.

The match Minerul Lupeni – Politehnica Timișoara will be played on Friday, April 18, at 17.00, in the 5th round of the play-off round of League 3, and will be broadcasted on FRF.tv (requires account, which is free). The Alb-violets are in first place with 44 points, six more than the Hunedorenes and nine points ahead of third place – CSC Ghiroda.