On Friday night, Tottenham Hotspur defender Radu Dragusin was in action for his Romania side, as they hosted Kosovo in the UEFA nations league. To guarantee their promotion from league C to league B, all they had to do was avoid defeat in this one.
It looked like that was the way it was heading, with the scores goalless going into second half stoppage time – despite Kosovo being the better side on the night. However, it was not as simple as that. Oh no, far, far from it.
Extremely strange night at the office for Dragusin's side
As the game entered stoppage time, Kosovo players began to walk off the pitch, before the game had finished. Some have said this is because the Romanian fans began chanting about Serbia. For those unaware, there are a lot of geopolitical tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, with Albania and Switzerland also involved. Ironically, Serbia actually played Switzerland in a nations league game tonight.
The logistics of what happened are still not fully clear, but is certainly a mess either way. UEFA are now going to have to decide what happens in terms of the outcome of the game, with some suggesting that Romania will be awarded a 3-0 victory.
What makes this even more interesting is that Romania had beaten Kosovo 3-0 in their previous meeting. Therefore, Kosovo needed a 3-0 win here to match the head to head record, which is the first tiebreak. Of course, had Kosovo won the game by one or two goals, they could have beaten Romania’s result on match day six, early next week, to top the group.
Furthermore, Kosovo will host Lithuania, who have zero points – whilst Romania will play Cyprus, who have six points. On the one hand, that is the easier game for Kosovo, who would surely have fancied a win.
However, Romania beat Cyprus 3-0 last time out, and would also be expected to win that game. Therefore, it was clearly in Kosovo’s interest to not settle for a one or two goal win, and hope to win by three goals. Some have said that they will refer to the provocative chants from Romania when speaking to UEFA, and will call for a 3-0 win to be given to them, which would give them a strong chance of topping the group.
Certainly a very interesting case to keep an eye on. As for Dragusin himself, amidst the chaos, he had a very good game. The defender recorded; seven clearances, including one off the line, two blocked shots, 2/3 long balls, and 2/3 aerial duels.
Next up for Romania, assuming this game is not replayed, is that aforementioned game against Cyprus on Monday evening, at 19:45 GMT.