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Friday, September 7, 2012

Victor Piturca playing the blame game

Romania returned in September to their worst ever ranking - 57th.

This is what Victor Piturca, the national team manager, had to say about it:

"We're below Estonia because of the matches played two years ago, when I wasn't in charge. Lately, the national team gained points and it will keep on climbing. Since I've returned as manager, we have only lost to Belgium and Slovenia. The numbers prove this."

That's wrong (and I'm not a fan of Razvan Lucescu - the previous manager).

The September 2012 ranking for Romania includes 41 matches - from the 3 - 0 home loss to Lithuania (6 September 2008) in the 2010 FIFA World Cup preliminaries to the 4 - 3 away loss to Slovenia in a friendly (15 August 2012).

Three managers have been in charge in this time:

Victor Piturca: September 2008 - April 2009

7 games, 1150.5 points - an average of 164.357 points.

Razvan Lucescu: June 2009 - June 2011

20 games, 6562.55 points - 328.1275 per game.

Emil Sandoi: June 2011

2 games, 0 points - 0 points per game.

Victor Piturca: August 2011 - present

12 games, 3445.66 points - 287.138 per game.

As you can see, Victor Piturca's averages are both lower than Razvan Lucescu's average.

Further more, with a win against Slovenia in August, Romania would have had 592 points, good enough for 50th place in the ranking - above Estonia.

Maybe Victor Piturca should have said: "We're below Estonia because we didn't win against Slovenia." That would have been correct. The numbers prove this :)

About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.

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