FCM Ungheni lost 0-1 in a friendly played on Saturday at the ground of FC Bacău, a club from Romania’s Liga 2. It is the first pre-season test in which the city’s team faced an opponent from outside Moldova — and the first against a club from its own tier.
An own goal settled the only contest
The match finished with a single goal, and it was scored at the Ungheni end. According to the hosts’ account, the goal came after a shot by Andrei Pavel, deflected into his own net by defender Octavian Vatavu.
The only goal of the match came from a shot by Andrei Pavel, deflected into his own net by Octavian Vatavu, the FCM Ungheni defender.
FC Bacău, official Facebook page
The details beyond the score — the line-up that was tried out and the passages of play — were not made public by FCM Ungheni, which had not published its own account of the match at the time of writing. For now, the host club remains the only source on the game.
The first opponent across the Prut — and from the same level
Unlike the previous tests, this time Ungheni measured themselves against a club from Romania rather than the domestic league. FC Bacău were promoted to Liga 2, the second tier of Romanian football, for the first time, and were one of the revelations of the 2025/2026 season, their first in the second tier, under head coach Costel Enache.
It is a nuance that matters when reading the score. FCM Ungheni play in Liga 1, the second tier of Moldovan football, so at Bacău they met, for the first time this summer, a team from the same rung of the ladder. The first two friendlies had been against top-flight Moldovan sides — a 0-0 with Dacia Buiucani and a 3-4 with Zimbru. A narrow defeat, settled by an own goal, away from home and against an opponent of comparable level, says less about the balance of power than about the stage of preparation.
Where it fits in the pre-season
The Bacău match is Ungheni’s third test game of this summer’s training camps. After 0-0 with Dacia Buiucani on 13 June and 3-4 with Zimbru around 20 June, the test in Romania rounds out a series in which the team coached by Dorin Bambuleac is bedding in its squad before the new season.
The stakes of these friendlies are tied to the club’s recent path. FCM Ungheni came very close to promotion last season: they finished top of their group in the second phase but missed the step up to the top flight, knocked out in the play-off by FC Florești, 5-4, on 16 May. Against that backdrop, each test against opponents from Moldova’s Liga 1 or Romania’s second tier is a barometer: it shows how close the city’s team is to the level it is aiming for. The full schedule of friendlies and the line-ups being tried out were not made public by the club by the time of publication.