Sport.ro, 18 October: when will Romania have a team in the Champions League’s main phase again? Ilie Stan, on the phone, VOYO SPORT LIVE. He sighed. “With all due respect to Romanian football, I don’t think we’ll have one soon.” It is not a calendar. It is an opinion. Andru Nenciu had Robert Niță and Mihai Mironică in the studio. Stan was called.

His reason: the pool. Then, he says, he was Romania’s top scorer from a holding midfielder’s spot and often not even in the squad. In his zone, Lupescu, Gică Popescu. They were at Leverkusen, at Eindhoven. He was in the Romanian league. Now, he says, you make the national team easily. And you lose easily, because there is no quality. The results show. That is his mouth. It is not a UEFA report.

Stan played nine seasons at Steaua. The European Cup final, 1989: 0–4 to AC Milan. He knows the room. It is not the stadium from July 2023, in the picture. The final was elsewhere. The photograph is today’s Ghencea.

The last Romanian group in the Champions League, still Sport.ro: Steaua / FCSB, 2013–14. Vardar, Dinamo Tbilisi, Legia, in the qualifiers. Then Chelsea, Schalke 04, Basel. Three points, three draws, the rest defeats, last in the group. Since then, a gap. Digi Sport, 2025, Ricardo Cadu: ten years ahead, still none. Another show, another mouth. It is not Stan.

GSP, Miodrag Belodedici, at BIAS 2026: “Champions League is finished for us.” Craiova, good that it is in the Conference. We are not what we were. That is the reality, in his telling. Two former champions, two interviews, the same distance. Neither puts a date.

Until UEFA writes something else, what remains is a sigh and 2013–14. Who reaches the groups shows on the pitch. Not on the phone.

Image: 8Dodo8, Steaua Stadium, 5 July 2023, public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Today’s Ghencea, not the 1989 final.

Sources consulted: Întrebat când va mai avea România o echipă în Champions League, Ilie Stan a oftat: „Cu tot respectul...” — Sport.ro; Miodrag Belodedici: „Champions League s-a terminat pentru noi” — Gazeta Sporturilor.