Cristina Neagu’s International Career Ends in the Champions’ League Quarter-Finals
If you also include the 2019-2020 edition, which was canceled at that stage, CSM Bucharest‘s run in the EHF Women’s Champions’ League ends in the quarter-finals for the seventh time in a row… And this comes at the hands of Team Esbjerg for the third time in four seasons, last week’s first leg actually being CSM’s only victory in the eight matches played against them during this period. But this time around it was special, the elimination resulting from today’s match marking the end of Cristina Neagu‘s international career, only a maximum of six domestic matches being left before her retirement, five if they’ll somehow fail to reach the Cup final, and that’s assuming that she’ll play in all of them.
At least she scored just the four goals needed to get to 101 today, extending her streak of scoring over 100 goals per season in the Champions’ League to five seasons in a row, and obviously also extending her lead as the top goalscorer in the history of the competition, but that’s a pale consolation for being unable to end her career by playing at least for a podium place, which last happened in 2018, if not for the trophy, which she only won back in 2015, while playing for Buducnost. And in fact 2015 was her best year from this point of view, since that was also when she won the bronze medal with the national team at the World Championship.
When you think of it like that, ten years since her best season and not much of anything for the past seven, 2018 also being the last year when she was selected World and European Player of the Year, it’s quite sad, or at the very least particularly disappointing for a player of her level. Maybe she’d have achieved more if she wouldn’t have returned to Romania, despite the apparent strength of our championship, but that’s far from certain, and at least it’s a good thing, for her as well as for the fans, that she’s ending her career here. And, either way, I for one consider her, along with Simona Halep, who has also retired this year, to be the Romanian athletes who are pretty much impossible to criticize. At the moment, David Popovici may have a chance to follow them from that point of view, but he’d need to keep himself at least at this level for several more years before that will truly be the case.
