Politehnica resumes the League 2 championship in two days. In the 8th round, the white-violet team will receive the visit of Concordia Chiajna, a team that has also had an underwhelming start to the season.

“On Sunday we meet Concordia Chiajna, an opponent whose objective is promotion to League I, with very good players, League I players. I would list some of them: Llullaku, Rusescu, Mediop, Voicu, I would put here our Timisoara native – Dorin Codrea – and others. So I’ve listed almost half of the first 11, a good team with a new coach who will certainly come up with something new and the players will certainly be more determined. I’ve watched them in the last two games, a friendly against Dinamo and last night’s Cup match against U Cluj. I hope with all my heart that our players will react very well to my demands, it was very short time, but I think in this short time some changes for the better have been made. I hope that these changes will be seen on the pitch and we want very much to win, to please our supporters, the gallery and the people who are with the club”, said Octavian Benga, the new head coach of Politehnica.

The coach of the white-violet admits that the Ilfoveni have a slight advantage by the fact that they played more recently than his students – Chiajna was eliminated yesterday night from the Romanian Cup play-off by Universitatea Cluj (score 0-2): “From my point of view it is an advantage for them, because they played on Saturday with Dinamo, our team on Saturday did not play a friendly, they had yesterday’s match and I think they kept them in their grip and have a better rhythm of play Concordia Chiajna. I hope that through the training we have done we will balance this and that we won’t see a difference in rhythm or attention, concentration, on their part.”

The white-violet still can’t rely on some young players for medical reasons (the cases of Cosmin Huminic and Ionuț Bătănași). Instead, Daniel Benzar has started to make light runs and Adrian Zaluschi has become 100% fit to play. Another “under” player, Luchian Gologan, resumed training after a serious injury suffered in the first round.

“It’s a very important match for us, we hope to win, take all three points and move up in the standings, because we are in a very bad situation. We are playing against an opponent with experienced players, especially from League 2 and League 1, who can recover at any time. We have to be very careful not to give them any chance, otherwise we will have very big problems. Especially as they have had two games, we haven’t had any in two weeks, they have a different rhythm of play, we are suffering in this respect, but we hope to make up for it by organising the game… We have to feel motivated in every game and it doesn’t matter who the coach is, you have to win, you have to do your job. We hope to win now and make a fresh start. In football first of all the results decide, otherwise we can talk for two days, depending on the results it matters… we haven’t won so far (n.r. only one match), we have five points. That’s our mirror and the players and coaches”, said the experienced midfielder Alin Ignea.

The match between Politehnica Timișoara and Concordia Chiajna will be played at the “Știința” arena on Sunday, February 2, at 11.00 am, in the 8th round of League 2. Ilfovenii are in 14th place with seven points, while our team is 18th with five points.

UPDATE The game will be streamed live on our YouTube channel: ! Tickets for this match can be purchased HERE.