Alexandru Cicâldău

In August 2024, Alexandru Cicâldău turned down a move to Belgium's Westerlo, worth roughly €3.5m, and chose instead to go home. That decision followed months of public pressure from Gigi Becali, the former owner of FCSB, who argued in the press that only his club could give the midfielder European football and wages to match. Cicâldău ignored him too, returning instead to Universitatea Craiova as a free agent that September, after the club activated a buy-out option in his contract for €1.5m.

He had left Craiova three years earlier under very different circumstances. Cicâldău came through the academy at Viitorul Constanța, making his first-team debut there in 2016 and spending two seasons in the senior side before Craiova signed him in 2018. Over the next three years he became one of the team's key players, scoring 33 goals in 129 appearances and winning the Romanian Cup and Super Cup. That form took him to Galatasaray in 2021 for a fee of €6.5m plus €2m in bonuses, a record for a Romanian player at the time.

Istanbul did not go to plan. Injuries and patchy form limited him to 41 appearances and 5 goals for Galatasaray, before the move back to Craiova.

For Romania, Cicâldău made his debut against Israel in March 2018 and has since won 39 caps, scoring 4 goals, including two in a 2022 World Cup qualifier against Armenia.