Big with the small, a possible key to success

The national football teams are enjoying a beautiful autumn. The youth obtained the fourth qualification for the final tournament of the European Championship, and the team coached by Mircea Lucescu only won (Cyprus, Kosovo, Lithuania 2) in the four games played in the Nations League matches.

If with regard to the youth things are clear, apart from any discussions (minus the outing in decor of the selector Daniel Pancu), with regard to the first team, there is intense talk about the fact that the opponents are not from the first line of values and that it is not necessary to we get too excited. If we appeal to memory, we will find that the success of the generation of the 90s was based on "guaranteed" victories with the small teams, the qualifications being obtained (and) with the points from these confrontations. Even if we like to remember only the big victories, there's no need to lie, the team of Hagi, Popescu, Petrescu didn't get victories on a conveyor belt with Germany, Spain, Italy, France, England. They didn't even play these teams that often outside of the finals. For example, in the preliminaries for the World Championship in 1998, the last one at which our team was present, the tricolors were in a group with Lithuania, Lichtenstein, Macedonia, Iceland and Ireland.

It is counterproductive to ignore the faultless run that gives confidence to both the team and the supporters. Domestic football, at the level of national teams, is in a good moment, the likes of which have been quite few in the last 24 years. A little optimism never hurts, no matter how much we like or dislike the leaders of the federation.