they had a very good campaign qualifying for the Play-offs with a match to spare and finishing 5th in the league, just two points off the European spots. The style of play changed too, from Sumudica's attack minded free-flowing style to a more defensive, counter-attack based playstyle. That season, Astra was a team hard to beat by the big teams, and rarely put a foot wrong against smaller clubs. Their best player that season was their goalkeeper Plamen Iliev who had many outstanding performances. Also, Alexandru Ionita had a spectacular breakout season scoring 10 goals in 20 games before being sold in the winter to eventual league winners CFR Cluj. Another remarkable player was the youngster Silviu Balaure with 8 goals. Even though it was a solid campaign, after a surprise elimination from the quarter finals of the Romanian Cup and public criticism from the owner for the boring style of play Edi Iordanescu resigned from the job with 8 games left. At Astra, Edi won 15 games, drew 10 and lost 10, conceding only 35 goals in as many matches. He was replaced by Gheorghe Multescu for the remainder of the season. After the season ended, the assistant Marius Maldarasanu was named the head coach of the team, this being his managerial debut. In the summer window, a big wave of French players were brought to the club, Mike Cestor, Julien Bègue, Djiman Koukou, to name a few. Two other important additions were former Gaz Metan Medias winger Azdren Llullaku and midfielder Nelut Rosu. Even though the team started the season very good with a surprising 1–0 win over the vice-champions FCSB, secured by a Llullaku header after a corner kick, Astra was yet to sign a striker for the campaign. A few days later, owner Ioan Niculae announced that Astra Giurgiu manage to buy back their former star attacker Denis Alibec, for 1 million euro, from FCSB, where he was excluded from the team after a ugly fallout with the chairman Mihai Stoica, coach Nicolae Dică and FCSB supporters. The transfer came as a big surprise, because Niculae was known to be very cheap in the past, not wanting to invest too much into football. He made his debut in a away draw at Iasi, where Llullaku managed to score again, this time from a penalty kick. Under Maldarasanu, the team had spirit, but was tactically inept, and,