the unstoppable duo Alibec-Budescu. Throughout the season, a lot of former players returned to the club. Former title winners Gabriel Enache, Alexandru Dandea, Alexandru Ioniță and club legend Takayuki Seto returned to the team alongside former goal-scorer Kehinde Fatai. Despite the quality of his squad, Alexa had a short and awful stint as Astra Giurgiu manager. After a 2–2 draw against FC Botoșani in his debut he was filmed getting punched in the face by Anamaria Prodan after a disagreement about a player she brought to the club. After only two games he wanted to quit. He was finally fired after a dreadful 0–0 performance at home against FC Hermannstadt. With one of the best squads in the league he managed only four wins, four draws and four losses. Even though he was considered a defensive manager, the team conceded a goal in 11 out of 12 games and struggled to create chances, playing one of the most uninspired, boring and depressing football in the club's history. The naming of Dan Alexa in charge of the club was a big failure. Bogdan Andone, Sumudica's former assistant from the 2016 title winning squad, was put in charge of the team. The style massively improved under Andone. A young and very promising manager, Andone played a defensive game-style, heavily based on lethal counter-attacks. Impressively, he won his first ten league games in charge, grinding many 1–0 wins. Before the winter break, the team even got in the first place of the league for the first time in the last four years and had aspirations for a new title. Unfortunately, the ever present money problems took a toll on the team. Astra was even docked three points, and failed to win any of their last four games of the regular season, barely qualifying for the play-offs, after a lucky draw against Sepsi OSK in which they scored 2 goals in only one minute. Qualified in the play-off for the 5th season in a row (a record held only by them and FCSB) the team regained its form. But, during the COVID-19 quarantine, disappointment struck again, because, for financial reasons, Astra Giurgiu failed to gain the European license, meaning that they can't play in the Europa League next season. Even though Astra had nothing left to play for, the team easily finished on the podium of Liga 1. Although the team was heavily held