Swansea City vs Petrolul Ploiesti - Match preview, statistics, team news & analysis

The Match

Swansea are looking to get back to winning ways after Manchester United rolled through the Liberty with all the swagger and pomp you'd expect of a team intent on retaining their title. Michael Laudrup will be hoping the defence can quickly return to the kind of form which saw them keep clean sheet after clean sheet throughout pre-season, as well as the two games with Malmo, but with the Swans playing Spurs on Sunday it's likely we'll see a good deal of squad rotation. This early in the season, with fatigue not yet a factor, matches like this offer the opportunity to build confidence by winning games, and Laudrup will be more than aware of that with the squad still licking their wounds from Saturday's match with United.

Petrolul Ploiesti currently lie fifth in their league, after picking up an impressive three wins and two draws in their first five games. Couple that with the fact they dismissed Wilfried Bony's old mates at Vitesse in their previous Europa League tie and you'd have to expect we'll be in for a tough test tomorrow night. They haven't kept a clean sheet in three matches though, so they'll no doubt be worried about conceding with the wealth of talent available to the Swans, while getting as many away goals as possible will be top of their priority list.

Prior Form (most recent at top)

Premier League          Swansea              1 - 4   Manchester United   
Europa League           Malmö FF              0 - 0   Swansea
Europa League           Swansea              4 - 0    Malmö FF
Friendly                       Reading                0 - 3    Swansea
Friendly                       Exeter City            0 - 2   Swansea

Liga I                     Petrolul Ploieşti 1 - 1   Ceahlăul Piatr
Liga I                     Oţelul Galaţi         1 - 2   Petrolul Ploieşti
Europa League     Vitesse                 1 - 2   Petrolul Ploieşti
Liga I                     Petrolul Ploieşti 0 - 0   Braşov
Europa League       Petrolul Ploieşti 1 - 1    Vitesse

Team News

Swansea will still be without Jonathan De Guzman following a spot of concussion, while Nathan Dyer looks set to miss out after picking up a hamstring injury last time out against United.

Petrolul will be without midfielder Laurentiu Marinescu who's recovering from a cruciate injury, but otherwise (if the internet is to be believed) they have a fully fit squad to choose from.

Completely guessed lineups

As with the Malmo game, there really is no point me predicting Petrolul's lineup as, frankly, I don't know enough about the side. Their lineup in the last match they played was as follows; B. Jović, G. Cînu, A. Marc, A. Dumitraș, L. Cazan, V. Achim, D. Stana, S. Chitoșcă, E. Jula, M. Constantinescu, B. Golubović, while you can get a decent grasp of who figures regularly for them here: 

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/petrolul-ploiesti/leistungsdaten/verein_9465.html

Statistics & Trivia

• Petrolul reserve goalkeeper Mircea Bornescu remarkably has two league goals to his name. He's unlikely to feature though.
• Wilfried Bony previously finished the competition's top scorer with nine goals - with two already in as many games he'll no doubt be keen to add to his tally. 
• Petrolul have previously faced Welsh opposition; beating Wrexham 1-0 over two legs in the Cup Winner's Cup in 1995.
• Petrolul only lost four league games during the entire of last season, and finished third in the league.

For more information on our opponents, check out a profile of the club I put together a week or so ago:

http://www.theswanseaway.co.uk/2013/08/swansea-to-face-petrolul-ploiesti-of.html

Straight from the horse's mouth

Swansea manager Michael Laudrup is keen to exercise the demons of Saturday's performance:

"I told the players that we have to move on from Manchester United, and remember that we don't have to measure ourselves against teams like that. 

"We are now going into a new competition and every time you lose a game, it's important to try and win the next one." 

Petrolul manager Cosmin Contra acknowledged the tough task ahead, and paid tribute to former mentor Laudrup:

“They [Swansea] are the clear favourites. Swansea is a team that have a lot of good players and a great manager. They also play in the Premier League and won a trophy last season, but when I look at Swansea I see good football and it will be hard for us. 

“They are not a traditional English team – they play more like Spain. I played for West Brom for six months and there were a lot of long balls, but we have come here to play football and try to get back to Romania with a good result to try and give us a chance of qualifying for the next round. 

“It was a great year [playing under Laudrup at Getafe]. We managed to reach the quarter-finals of the Europa League and the final of the Spanish Cup. We played really well during the course of the season, and Laudrup is an extraordinarily good manager. 

“I also know the Swansea players who played in Spain. I also played with Pablo Hernandez when he was with me at Getafe. I have also watched a lot of their matches, they are a very good side and will be looking to bounce back after the defeat to Manchester United.”

Petrolul midfielder Ovidiu Hoban is looking forward to what he clearly views as one of the biggest matches in his career: 

“It is one of the most important matches that I’ll play in, but I’m sure that all the players will be pushing to get a good result.” 

Analysis


While I can't say I know too much about our Romanian opponents (other than they've got a colourful recent history given the videos I previously found on Youtube), I did see some Swansea fans commenting they'd watched a couple of their recent games online, and they didn't seem particularly daunted by the task ahead of us. Most of the comments centred around Petrolul having some talented players, but that they played quite deeply and looked to hit their opponents on the counter-attack.

The connection between Laudrup and Contra can't be underestimated. Having worked with Laudrup towards the end of his playing career, the Petrolul boss was probably looking to picks up management tips with a switch to the coaching staff not too far off, and it's likely he'll understand the tactics of a "Laudrup team" better than most. Whether he can use that to get one over on us tactically, it remains to be seen.

Hopefully we'll see the best parts of the performance against United, where early on especially we troubled the champions' backline, coupled with a return to the defensive coolness which saw us shut out Malmo over two legs.

You have to expect the Swans to triumph here, but key will be keeping a clean sheet. Away goals are vital in this competition, and we don't want to give Petrolul any encouragement heading into the second leg. A two or three goal winning margin please, with a clean sheet to boot.

Not a lot to ask for, eh?

Swansea to face Petrolul Ploiesti of Romania

Everything you needed to know (and probably some things you didn't) about our Europa League Playoff Round opponents

Now that the dust has settled from the Swans' comfortable 4-0 aggregate victory over Malmo and we've found out who we're to face in the next phase of the competition, it seemed like as appropriate a time as any to turn one eye towards our next opponents. With the first (home) leg scheduled for Thursday 22nd of this month (the Thursday after our opener at home to Man Utd) there's some time to contemplate our opponents, so what do we know about them?

Founded in 1924 as Juventus Bucuresti following the mergers of two other teams, they've seen their fair share of successes as well as, remarkably, going through a whole load of names. They've been known as Juventus București, Distribuția București, Petrolul București, Competrol București, Partizanul București, Flacăra București, Flacăra Ploiești, Energia Ploiești, Petrolul Ploiești and FC Ploiești, as well as their current moniker Petrolul Ploiesti. They've had more names than Prince! They've won four Liga I titles as well as three Copa Romaniel's (the national cup competition), the most recent of which came last year which is how they find themselves in Europe this season.

As you may have been able to deduce from their prior names, the club were formerly based in Bucharest before moving to Ploiesti, and as such have retained a fierce rivalry with Rapid Bucharest, which is known as "The First Derby" in Romanian football circles. Given the ferocity of the derby between Steaua Bucharest and Dinamo Bucharest, I am wondering where the name originated from. Perhaps the rivalry dates further back? Who knows. 

In researching this blog I was wondering what kind of thing we could expect from a Romanian team, and I have to be honest I've been rather worried by what I've found. One of the first things I stumbled on was this video of a Romanian goalkeeper going nuts after a penalty was successfully converted (last May):

Thankfully, at least that one doesn't involve the team we're set to face, which is more than can be said for the next few. Next up is a rather concerning video from October 2011 in which a Steaua Bucharest player has his cheekbone broken by a fan of Petrolul Ploiesti whilst playing at Petrolul's ground.




Hardly reassuring is it? To be honest it just gets worse - this is from May 2013. The guilty party is Petrolul's goalkeeper:




Hmmm....After all of that it seems some comic relief is in order - and Romania comes to the rescue! Again, this one involves Petrolul. This time, it's an even weirder one in that their opponents, Vointa Sibiu, were down to 9 man and losing 3-1 when a contentious penalty decision tipped them over the edge, as they felt they'd been on the end of harsh treatment from the referee. The remaining outfield players left the field in protest while the goalkeeper...well, just watch the video:





...and we thought the Premier League had drama? After what we've just seen I think fans and players alike would be forgiven for having reservations ahead of a trip to that particular corner of the footballing world. Hopefully nothing like that kicks off when the Swans are in town; after all we're the nice guys of football, right?

They've actually played Welsh opposition before - in 1995 they beat Wrexham 1-0 over two legs in the Cup Winners Cup - but Swansea will be an altogether different proposition. The club have featured quite a few times in European competition down the years, and since returning to Liga I Petrolul have made great strides towards recapturing past glories - a return to European football must be extremely pleasing for anyone with a long-standing association with the club. So far this campaign they've put out Vikingur (Faroe Islands' champions) as well as, impressively, Vitesse Arnhem - the team from whom we signed Wilfried Bony. It seems they could've done with spending a bit more of that £12million we gave them!

As far as league performances go, last season they finished 3rd behind eventual champions Steaua Bucharest and Pandurii Târgu Jiu (whose name I'm very glad I don't have to pronounce), only losing 4 games all season - indeed it seems an inability to close out a game cost them dear. Pandurii lost 5 more games and conceded 9 more goals, but thanks to less draws and more wins were able to finish above Petrolul.

Their manager is actually a well-known face - to Michael Laudrup at least. Cosmin Contra is a former defender who played for, amongst others, the Romanian national team, West Brom & Getafe, and it was during his time at the Spanish club that he worked under the Danish legend. Their time at the club coincided with Getafe's run to the quarter final of the Europa League, so both manager's will no doubt be harbouring hopes of replicating that kind of form in this year's competition.

It seems there's the makings of a good team here, and perhaps the win over Vitesse wasn't the "freak result" some thought. One thing's for sure; the Swans will find out soon enough.