Flying start for Romania

Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-3 Romania
Three goals in the first 30 minutes provided the knock-out blow for Romania as they started their EURO 2004™ Group 2 qualification campaign with a 3-0 away win against Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Early reward
Romania attacked from the first whistle and were rewarded for their efforts after just six minutes as Adrian Mutu's free-kick was headed past Bosnia-Herzegovina goalkeeper Tomislav Piplica by Christian Chivu.

Instant second
The home side had barely had the chance to recover from that early setback before they were 2-0 down, as Dorinel Munteanu exploited a major error in the home side's defence to beat Piplica for the second time in the evening after eight minutes.

Hota delays
Bosnia-Herzegovina recovered their composure a little, and could have clawed their way back into the game had Ahmedin Hota not lingered too long over placing a 23rd-minute shot, allowing a pack of Romanian defenders to close him down.

Ganea makes sure
Hota had all the more reason to rue his error five minutes later as Ganea scored Romania's third goal with a fine 16-metre drive and Bosnia-Herzegovina had even more regrets after 35 minutes as Romania goalkeeper Bogdan Vintila parried Hasan Salihamidzic's shot into the path of Vedin Music only for the unmarked player to miss the target.

Two chances
As the visitors relaxed in the second half, it was Ganea who was left wondering what might have been as he had two excellent chances to add to his total for the night. Piplica fended off his 57th-minute drive with an acrobatic save but Ganea will feel he should have done better when he miscued a header wide after 66 minutes.

Brkic off the pace
The only chance the home side had to reduce the defecit came when Senad Brkic failed to get on the end of a fine 77th-minute cross from Vedin Music.

'A poor performance'
"I will not accept such a poor performance from my side," said Bosnia-Herzegovina coach Blaz Sliskovic after the game. "The early lead for the visiting side led to a complete destruction of our strategy and game. What next, we will see in the next days."

'I had expected more resistance'
"We have come to win and we achieved that," concluded Romania coach Anghel Iordanescu. "I had expected more resistance from the hosts, but our early lead obviously decided the match."