Romania captain Christian Chivu is determined to help his side qualify for the Euro 2008 quarterfinals on expense of Italy and France.
"We want to win and send France and Italy back home," said Chivu, who will lead the Romanians in their final Group C game against the Netherlands in Bern on Tuesday, when Italy meet France simultaneously in Zurich.
With astonishing results of previous matches in the well-received Group of Death, Romania sit on the second after drawing France 0-0 and Italy 1-1, trailing four points of the group leaders the Netherlands.
A victory for Romania on Tuesday will book them a place in last eight of the Austria and Switzerland tournament, slated from June 7 to 29.
Italy and France, the 2006 World Cup winners and runners-up, have both struggled with poor performance and are on brink of elimination with only one point from two games.
Many people believe that Holland, having already qualified from Group C in first place, may deliberately lose the match in order to eliminate the two World Cup finalists.
However Chivu ruled out the possibiltiy and rubbished all talk of a possible conspiracy.
"Will it be an easy game? I played in Holland and know them well. They will not play to lose," said Chivu, who played for Ajax from 1999 to 2003 before moving to Serie A to join Roma. He signed for Inter Milan last summer.
"Maybe they will rest Ruud van Nistelrooy, but who do you get instead - Robin van Persie? It will hardly be a weak side we are playing against and the players who have not played yet will be trying to impress van Basten," he said.
However he remained confident that Romania can hold their own.
"We beat them 1-0 in our qualifier at home, in Constanza," he recalled. "But that was a special match with lots of rain and wind. We had a lot of luck that day. But this is a special moment for us now."
"We have the chance to reach the quarterfinals and we're going to give everything for 90 minutes to do that," said Chivu.
Source: Xinhua
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