Rapid blow for Maldarasanu

FC Rapid Bucuresti will be without Marius Maldarasanu for the start of their UEFA Champions League qualifying campaign.

Training accident
The 28-year-old has been told to rest for at least two months or put his entire career at risk after suffering a severe achilles tendon injury while on loan at Turkish side Besiktas JK. The 28-year-old played just four games in Turkey before he slipped at the club's training ground on 11 March and ruptured the tendon.

Permanent move
The right-sided midfield player, had hoped to earn a permanent move to Besiktas. Instead he now faces another eight weeks of inactivity, having already spent eleven weeks on the sidelines. "I must be cursed," he said. "In the past, I missed out on transfers to [Deportivo] Alavés and [TSV] 1860 München and now, at my first club abroad, I suffered the first bad injury of my career."

Bleak assessment
Maldarasanu underwent tests at the National Sports Medicine Institute in Bucharest where doctors gave the bleak assessment that any training on his injured foot could cause permanent damage. He is now certain to miss Rapid's opening Champions League game in the first qualifying round.