Laurențiu Reghecampf returned to FCSB and immediately promised Gigi Becali the Champions League, so Ilie Dumitrescu has ordered a permanent 11-point handicap installed at the club's training ground in Berceni. From Monday, every training match will begin with FCSB trailing by the exact margin separating them from Dinamo and Rapid in the Superliga table.
«I am 100% convinced they will reach the play-off,» Dumitrescu said, supervising the installation of a scoreboard that starts every session at 0-11. «But the title is far away, so we must train the deficit. The players will spend two hours a day chasing goals that do not exist. It is the only way to prepare for reality.»
The club has hired a full-time deficit coach, a former accountant from Craiova, whose sole job is to remind the squad at every water break that Universitatea Craiova, Petrolul and Universitatea Cluj are still ahead. The training pitch now features eleven extra goalposts, one for each point FCSB must recover, and the goalkeepers must defend all of them simultaneously.
Reghecampf has embraced the method, telling reporters that he now conducts all tactical meetings from a chair placed eleven metres behind the tactics board. «The million from the Champions League is still the target,» he said. «But first we must learn to lose by eleven before we win by one.»
By Thursday, the entire squad was reported to be jogging in a permanent state of catch-up, while the club shop began selling scarves embroidered with the words «minus eleven, but confident».