Romania held European champions Spain to a 0-0 draw on Sunday in a Euro 2016 warm-up that saw visiting goalkeeper Iker Casillas equal the record for the most international caps by a European player.
Casillas’ 166th appearance for Spain, over a 16 year span that includes winning the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010, took him level with Latvia’s Vitalijs Astafjevs in the continent’s record books.
The goalkeeper has also not conceded a goal in 710 minutes for Spain, but he was forced to make a couple of fine saves to keep another clean sheet.
Photo: EPA
The stalemate also showed that both teams have work to do in front of goal before Euro 2016 in France starts in June.
It was Spain’s second international friendly in four days following their fortuitous 1-1 draw away to Italy in Udine that ended their run of seven successive wins, as well as a run of six successive clean sheets.
David de Gea played in goal for Spain in that match.
Photo: EPA
The game featured several missed chances, with Romania, who have never lost at home to Spain, enjoying decent spells of possession and always looking to counterattack in numbers.
Spain coach Vicente del Bosque made 10 changes to the side that started against Italy, with centerback Gerard Pique the only survivor and Barcelona midfielder Sergi Roberto making his international debut.
“Romania had a very good game,” Del Bosque said. “They didn’t let us play our brand of football. They’re a good national team. I’m not completely satisfied with the two games. We lacked depth in general.”
The second-string lineup started well, creating some decent chances, and Romania goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu produced an excellent save to deny Pedro Rodriguez an opener after 10 minutes.
The open, attacking nature of the game continued, but it was obvious that Spain needed more quality in the penalty area against a team unbeaten in their 16 previous games.
Nicolae Stanciu, who scored a stunning long-range winner on his international debut in Romania’s 1-0 win over Lithuania on Thursday last week, tested Casillas on two occasions, with lively Adrian Popa also looking dangerous.
The two coaches made a number of substitutions after halftime with the flow fizzling out, before Florin Andone beat his marker in the penalty area and smashed a low left-footed shot just wide.
“It was a good test,” Romania coach Anghel Iordanescu said. “I’m glad that our tactical approach paid off. Spain are still a very good team, but we managed to keep them fairly well under control. We should really have scored at least one goal tonight.”
A minute’s silence was observed before the game in a tribute to Dutch great, and former Barcelona player and coach Johan Cruyff, who died on Thursday last week aged 68 after a five-month battle with lung cancer.
Romania have been drawn in Group A with hosts France, Switzerland and Albania at Euro 2016. Spain are in Group D alongside Turkey, Croatia and the Czech Republic.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier