Romania triumph twice in Turkey

Romania continued their preparations for November's UEFA European Futsal Championship as they produced 5-1 and 4-2 successes in two friendlies with Turkey in Istanbul.

Victories
Turkey, who are bidding to host the 2009 finals, are relative newcomers to the sport having only made their international debut in December with two losses in Romania. But Turkey have made fast progress and the results were useful ones for Romania ahead of their first major finals in Porto in November. In the first encounter yesterday Dumitru Stoica struck twice and Aurel Bugala, Lorand Szöcs and Gabriel Tomescu also found the target, while today Zsolt Mihaly was the double goalscorer and Cosmin Gherman and Robert Lupu also contributed to the victory.

'Well deserved'
Having overseen two wins against Egypt and a loss and victory versus Slovakia since qualification prior to visiting Turkey, Romania coach Zoltán Jakab said: "These were two well-deserved victories, we were better, but we are well aware that we will have to improve if we will want to achieve something important at the final tournament. It's good for us that we play so many friendlies, which keep us in good shape on international level." His team welcome Georgia for their next matches on 23 and 25 September and start their EURO campaign against the Czech Republic on 16 November.