He calmly slotted what turned out to be the winner five minutes before the interval although the Portuguese side were guilty of not finishing off their opponents and were nearly made to suffer in the final minutes.
"We were strong in terms of ball possession and commanded the match," coach Jorge Jesus said.
"Otelul created very few chances and only scared us close to the 90 minutes. When a team is winning by just 1-0 they are always subject to conceding a draw at the end in a counter or a rebound."
Lively Bruno Cesar nearly opened the scoring but his thunderous shot from the edge of the penalty area went just wide after Otelul's defence failed to clear a long throw-in.
"We could have killed the game before and all that late suffering was unnecessary," said goal scorer Bruno Cesar.
"Defeat is defeat, I can't be satisfied because we have made a lot of mistakes and at this level that is not allowed," Otelul coach Dorinel Munteanu, Romania's most capped international, told local state television TVR.
"We are not in the same shape we were last year for various reasons. Today we lacked courage," he added.
