Romania was defeated by Bosnia in the opening of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, with a score of 0-1 on Friday evening at the National Arena, after a very unconvincing performance by the boys coached by manager Mircea Lucescu.
So we started very poorly in this qualifying group towards the World Cup, the first final tournament to be held in 3 concurrent countries, Mexico, the USA, and Canada, a group that also includes Austria, Cyprus, and San Marino.
We will play away on Monday against the small Italian enclave nation, but what is important to mention is that, although we started the campaign with a defeat, our chances of qualifying for the World Cup play-offs are intact, and have even increased by two percent.
How does this happen? Thanks to our perfect run in the recent Nations League campaign. There, Romania won the group with 18 points and also promoted to League B. What’s more important is that this perfect run puts us in a position to be favorites to grab one of the 4 spots that will go to the World Cup play-offs, alongside the 12 teams occupying the 2nd places in the qualifying groups.
Assuming we finish the group below Austria and Bosnia, as is likely now after this match, Romania currently secures one of the 4 play-off spots via the Nations League, alongside Northern Ireland, Moldova, and North Macedonia.
This is a statistic provided by Football Meets Data, showing that Romania finished 9th in the ranking of all teams in the previous Nations League competition, giving us a 50 percent chance at the play-offs now, 2 percent more than at the start of the qualifiers. We are ahead of Sweden at the moment, with 44 percent, San Marino, Wales, Czech Republic, and Norway.
Furthermore, the same aforementioned publication gives a 50 percent probability that Romania could face Ukraine in the semi-final of this play-off, with Ukraine being the host country (theoretically the host, as they play their home matches in other countries due to the war, practically on neutral ground).
In the history of World Cup qualifiers, Romania has only managed to qualify for the World Cup once after losing the first match. It happened in the campaign for Mexico 1970. Back then, with Mircea Lucescu on the field, the tricolors were outclassed by Eusebio’s Portugal with a 3-0 defeat in Lisbon.