January 21, 2022
The Romania Casa Liga
recommenced after its winter break with a meeting between Arges Pitesti and
Dinamo Bucharest. Arges started the day in 8th place, 4 points from
a top 6 place but with a poor 3-2-5 home record, and an average home attendance
of 3,600.
The Arges starting XI
showed 4 changes from the starting line-up which lost 0-1 at Cluj in December,
with Turdan, Palic, Dimitrascu and Fatai coming in, and Boldor, Viana, Arias
and Raynov dropping down to the bench.
Dinamo sat second from
bottom, having lost all ten away matches so far. However, their starting
line-up showed 8 changes from the side that began the 0-2 home loss to Farul
just before Christmas, with only left side midfielder Antonio Bordusanu, ex-Udinese,
Granada and Espanyol midfielder Andrei Torje, and North Macedonian
International striker Mirko Ivanovski remaining in the side. Midfielder Catalin
Itu had returned to league leaders CFR Cluj at the end of his loan and Razvan
Popa had been released from his contract. However, the biggest impact was the
sale of star forward Deian Sorescu to Polish side Rakow Czestochowa for a
reported 800k Euros, which no doubt eased some of their alleged financial
problems.
In their place were
French defensive midfielder Balthazar Pierret from US Boulogne, centre-back
Razvan Patriche from bottom side Academica Clinceni, having made 17 appearances
for them in the first half of the season, right-back Marius Tomozei, who joined
after three appearances for UTA Arad and was playing out of position at
left-back, and journeyman Alin Buleica was signed as a free agent. Dinamo only
named 5 substitutes whereas Arges had 9 players on the bench.
The weather at
kick-off was dry but close to freezing, and Bet365 made the home side 3/5
favourites, with the draw at 12/5 and Dinamo at 17/4
Arges dominated the
first half in terms of possession, having 56%, but failed to create any clear-cut
chances in a cagey half of football that rarely grabbed the attention. Dinamo
came closest to getting the opening goal, but Ivanovski’s neat chip was
correctly chalked off for a narrow offside in the 24th minute.
Neither goalkeeper was unduly troubled, although Dinamo keeper Oncescu did make
a bit of a dog’s dinner in saving Latovlevici’s long range bouncing
cross-cum-shot.
Arges came out
strongly after the interval and took the lead in the 50th minute. A
corner from the left sailed beyond the far past to be headed back across goal
by Turda, where Isfan, with his back to the goal, controlled with one touch and
then was able to turn past Patriche and volleyed athletically into the far
corner from around 8 yards.
Dinamo thought they
had equalized in the 57th minute when Cosmin Matei controlled a long
ball over the defensive back-line and finished well, but the goal was disallowed,
perhaps for a slight push on Miguel ? It looked a poor decision, with Miguel
appearing to have mis-judged his attempted header without any impediment by
Matei, and one that Dinamo would complain bitterly about afterwards.
Arges then extended
their lead in the 69th minute thanks to an unnecessarily conceded penalty
by Dinamo, Patriche putting an elbow into face/shoulder of substitute Dumitru
when trying to deal with a cross but the Arges forward made enough of a meal of
it to win the award. After a VAR review, Serban drilled the penalty into bottom
right-hand corner.
Dinamo responded
strongly and in the 85th minute Bordusanu made a strong run down
right and delivered a low cross to Ivanovski, who was allowed the time and
space to turn and fire home across goal from 10 yards to bring renewed hope to
the visitors.
However, despite being
pegged back and 4 minutes of added on time being played, Arges saw out the end
of the match without any undue alarms.
In their first game
under coach Flavius Stoican, their third manager of the season, Dinamo fell to
yet another away loss,. However, their performance in the second half would
have been encouraging as they had most of the play after falling behind, and the
possession statistic for the whole game was 51% in Dinamo’s favour. They were
also harshly treated by the disallowing of what appeared to be perfectly good
goal, which didn’t seem to be even checked by VAR.
Arges though moved
closer to the top 6 and a place in the Play-Off round.
FC Arges Pitesti : Greab – Tofan, Turdan, Miguel, Latovlevici – Isfan (
Tanase ), Meza Colli, Palic ( Raynov ), Serban ( Said ), Dimitrascu ( Dumitriu
) – Fatai ( Arias )
Dinamo Bucharest : Oncescu – Buleica, Ehmann, Patriche, Tomozei ( Radu )– Bordusanu, Pierret, Matei, Rauta (
Bani ), Torje - Ivanovski
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ooLhnUE-UQ&t=361s
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