Unirea Slobozia claimed a shock 1:0 victory away at Politehnica Timisoara in the third round of Liga II's regular season on Saturday. The visitors, sitting eighteenth in the table, had not expected to leave the stadium with anything, but a last-minute strike turned the afternoon on its head. Politehnica, fourth-placed after five matches, saw their unbeaten run end in the most uncomfortable fashion.
The decisive moment arrived in the eighty-eighth minute when I. Rotariu found the net to silence the home crowd. By then the game had already been shaped by an earlier incident in the eighty-second minute, when a Politehnica player received a red card and changed the complexion of the contest. The visitors held their nerve after going down to ten men for a significant period before that late breakthrough.
Politehnica dominated possession with sixty-one per cent but could not turn their superiority into clear-cut chances. They registered four shots on target against Unirea's single effort, yet the visitors made the most of their opportunities. The hosts also had ten shots go off target, suggesting they were searching for a solution without quite finding the right one.
The statistics tell a story of control without consequence. Politehnica accumulated ninety-eight attacks to Unirea's seventy-three, but the visitors' efficiency in the final third proved decisive. Five yellow cards for the visitors compared to two for the hosts reflected the intensity of a match that grew increasingly edgy. The red card in the eighty-second minute came at a crucial moment, and Politehnica never quite recovered from the setback.
The result leaves Politehnica on fourteen points after six games, still in the upper reaches of the table but with their perfect record broken. Unirea remain at the bottom with just four points from six fixtures, though this victory provides a glimmer of hope. The visitors will take something positive from a performance that showed they could compete with the division's stronger sides.