Romania Coach Mircea Lucescu, who was hospitalized due to his illness, stated that he could not calm down even though days had passed since the Türkiye match in the 2026 FIFA World Cup European Qualifications play-off semi-final.
Speaking to the Romanian media outlet Golazo, Lucescu stated that his current health condition is good and said, “I am fine now. When I started analyzing the Turkey match, even though 3 days had passed, I was really angry. I felt very bad after this anger. I realized that I could not breathe normally.” he said.
The 80-year-old coach, who also denied the allegations that he had a heart attack, continued as follows:
“I have never had a heart attack, I have seen some people write like this. I had fibrillations (arrhythmia that causes the atria, the base chambers of the heart, to beat quickly and irregularly). This happened to me for the first time when I was in Brescia, Italy. It was very cold outside at that time and they took me to the hospital. They told me that if I did not get rid of the fibrillation on my own, they would give me a shock the next morning, but in the morning my pulse was back to normal. I experienced these fibrillations at the end of last year, too. Tomorrow is a heart attack.” “I will have another series of tests.”
Experienced coach emphasized that they made some mistakes in the Türkiye match and could not evaluate the goal positions sufficiently.
Stating that he was angry because they missed the scoring opportunities, Lucescu said, “The Turks could not maintain the tempo after the 60-65th minute and we could have surprised them. Everyone who analyzed the match carefully saw that Türkiye did not surprise us in any way and did absolutely nothing.” he said.
Stating that the positions Türkiye found in the first half were thanks to some balls lost by Romania, Lucescu said, “Apart from that, Türkiye did not leave us in a difficult situation in any way.” he said.
The National Football Team reached the final by beating Romania 1-0 in the play-off semi-finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup European Qualifications.
