Romania captain feels national pride

Gabriel Molomfalean became the first man to lead Romania out in a major futsal finals last night – and helped them to an 8-4 victory.

Debut win
The defeat of the Czech Republic leaves Romania top of the nascent UEFA European Futsal Championship Group A table, and with the tantalising prospect that a victory against Italy on Sunday would take them into the semi-finals. But the mere fact of winning on their debut in a final tournament was pleasure enough for Molomfalean.

'Fighting spirit'
"We are in this sort of competition for the first time," Molomfalean told uefa.com. "We have got a good result today and we are proud of this achievement. We hope to cause a real surprise in the coming games. We had a good fighting spirit and we aim to keep this up."

Dramatic match
Romania led twice in the first half – only to concede equalisers each time. Molomfalean then made a goal and scored another to put his team 4-2 up, and although that advantage disappeared four answered strikes late on put the game beyond the Czech Republic. Quick balls from the back were the key to the Romanian victory, along with the team spirit that Molomfalean puts down to the fact that virtually all his squad-mates also play together at his club, UEFA Futsal Cup regulars CIP Deva.

Preparations
"It is important for us that we are together at the same club," Molomfalean said. "We are the champions of Romania and a strong club. Before today we have played big games against stronger teams and this helped us win today. We prepared for this game and thought about defending strongly and scoring on the counterattack. We achieved this, and now we aim to do the same against Italy and Portugal."