Opening a thread in case anyon is interested in Romanian football. I will do a little analysis of Romanian 2nd league. Why? It might have a higher average number of spectators than the 1st league. And why that? This season of Romanian 2nd league marks the return of former a few (some were already there) traditional, fan favourite teams. ACS Petrolul 52 Ploiesti FC Petrolul Ploiesti finished the 2015/2016 season in the last place and due to financial issues they haven't even signed up for 2nd league and went bankrupt. Being a team with a large number of supporters, the fans gathered around an association and a few former legend players and started the ACS Petrolul 52 Ploiesti. The newly created team easily won the local 4th league (11 points ahead of 2nd place) and had to play a qualifier with the winner of another county's league (Dentas Tartasesti). 1st match was played away, Petrolul virtually securing promotion in 1 match as they won 3-0. The 2nd leg was legendary: 14.000 supporters showed up at the stadium and displayed an extraordinary banner that covered the stands. Match ended 2-2, Petrolul going up to the 3rd league. Before that season, they also secured a sponsorship with Veolia which most likely had a significant impact on the club's budget. The 2017/2018 season was also great, having dominated the 3rd league with 19 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses and they promoted to 2nd league. They managed to win back their badge and trophies in 2017 for the next 4 seasons, after having won the licitation organized by Ploiesti town hall, who owns them. The current season, after 4 matches Petrolul are in the 6th place, winning twice and 2 draws. Not sure about the attendance, a local newspaper says around 3500 people at the home match against Pandurii and around 5000 against Snagov in the 1st match day. ASU Politehnica Timisoara Local team FC Politehnica Timisoara (founded in 1921) went bankrupt in 2012 and the mayor of the city decided to move AC Recas to Timisoara. Poli supporters considered it merely a political move and so they decided to create a team of their own which they registered into the 5th division. They partnered up with the local Politehnica University, which has been the spiritual parent of the team across history. They finished their first season on the 2nd place, but as the 1st place didn't register to the 4th league, they still promoted. They promoted after 2 seasons to the 3rd league. The 2015-2016 season was also a success too, securing promotion after 20 wins, 1 draw and 7 losses, finishing 1st, 4 points ahead of 2nd place. It is now their 3rd season in 2nd league, their amazing supporters impressed on multiple occasions, particularly in their last 2 home matches against rivals UTA Arad (both home matches having an attendance of over 8000 people). Last season controversy: ASU Poli played away against rivals UTA Arad who play outside the city because they are getting a new stadium. The stadium they play in has only 2000 seats and home teams are required to give 5% of stadium capacity tickets to away fans, which in this case was 70. This angered Poli supporters who gave those tickets to a kids team, while some of them went into the enemy city and bought 350 tickets straight from the rivals. On matchday, riot police escorted Poli supporters and stopped them a couple of streets away from the stadium, not letting them further. UTA supporters actually left the stadium in solidarity and, in the 58th minute, Poli players left the field, losing 3-0 by decision + receiving a ~17.000 euro fine from the federation. Current season is not so good, 13th place, 1 win, 1 draw, 2 losses. The last match was the win against fellow traditional team U Cluj and the poli fans put on a show!
I'll profit of the UCL break to write about the current situation from Romanian 2nd league. We are currently 7 matches in and there were both expected and unexpected things. Academia Clinceni is in the lead with 6 wins and 1 loss. This is quite surprising as Clinceni have always been considered an upper middle team at best (6th place in 2017-2018, 14th in 2016-2017). 2nd place is held by Sportul Snagov which is a team with a... weird history. It used to be called Damila Maciuca, then became Metalul Resita. It managed to stay in the 2nd division twice (after relegating 'footballistically') as other teams didn't signup up because of financial reasons. When it was called Metalul, it fell into insolvency; their owner, Catalin Rufa, got into an argument with the mayor of Resita and so he moved the team to Snagov, where they took over a large part of CS/Vointa Snagov's staff and players. Somehow, they managed to get out of insolvency, brought quite many players and now... here they are: 5 wins and 2 draws. Traditional team Petrolul Ploiesti are in the 3rd place with 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, which is pretty good so far. They managed to snatch a win from ASU Poli the last match, scoring twice during injury time. It is expected of them to be in for the promotion battle, as they are a -- as we call it -- traditional team, a team that used to be great and had (and has) many supporters. Middle of the table is occupied by Mioveni, FC Arges, Pandurii, UTA, U Cluj, Chindia Targoviste, Energeticianul, Daco-Getica Bucuresti, Ripensia Timisoara, ASU Poli, Metaloglobus and Farul Constanta. The traditional teams from this part of the table seem to be, more or less, struggling. FC Arges have 4 wins and 3 draws (5th place), but they are not allowed to promote (because they are financed by the City Hall, I believe). UTA Arad are in the 7th place and seem to be still recovering from last season's financial issues and loss of players. They were supposed to play in their new stadium this year, but local authorities from Arad look like they almost completely abandoned the construction of the stadium (which the UTA supporters mockingly inaugurated). U Cluj aren't doing as well as most people, probably, expected. Considering they probably surpassed the number of 1000 socios (considered the most in Romania), boasting an average attendance of over 1000 people every match (yes, that's a lot in Romania, nowadays), their 4 wins and 3 losses is a slightly disappointing performance so far as they sit on the 8th place. ASU Poli Timisoara are also doing quite badly, winning 2, drawing once and losing 4 matches, being 13th place, barely above relegation zone. They are probably the 2nd team by number of socios (after U Cluj). The bad performance might come from the fact that they had 2 managers in the past season and are at their 3rd manager at this beginning of the league. SSC Farul are doing bad as well, but, they have bigger issues. The current team is a fan-owned team which tried to regain the historical logo of the team, which they failed, as former international player Ciprian Marica bought it and made plans of creating a whole new team. These plans angered Farul supporters who are almost in open war with Marica and local authorities who expelled them from the Farul Stadium. Therefore, they are now playing their home matches at the stadium Hagi built for his academy and team. The relegation zone consists of Luceafarul Oradea, Aerostar Bacau, ACS Poli Timisoara, Dacia Uniera Braila and FC Balotesti. Luceafarul and ACS Poli are struggling with finances, the latter facing an almost certain bankruptcy as their owner and creator, Timisoara City Hall, were proven that the financing of the team was illegal.
Why are there so many teams that go bankrupt in Romania? Can you also shed some light on the Steaua Bucharest situation too? I read that they went bankrupt but set up another team, and still the original trades?
Cheers for these @max1921 can't pretend i know much about the Romanian league so i find this really interesting
Well, with clubs owned by local authorities, it's usually wasting money and/or misuse of funds. And clubs who have private owners, it's usually that they try to profit from the club and not re-invest anything. Besides these 2 big reasons, just the simple fact that we are a poor country so it's hard to find sponsorships. + the lack of supporters About Steaua... From what I understood, in the early 00s, Steaua was in quite a bad financial situation and someone brought Becali forward because he promised to pay the debt. They accepted him, he started to get more and more people on the General Assembly and ended up having won the votes for him to take over the Steaua brand. But, it was revealed that the Army, who owns them, only lended the brand to the Paunescu brothers and they couldn't have given it further. It is suspected that Becali probably paid off the generals to be silent about it. So when they started to have bad relations, the Army 'suddenly' discovered that it wasn't done correctly so they sued Becali over who the brand belongs to and to demand reperations too, as he profited off something that wasn't his. The courts ended up deciding that the Army was correct so Becali's team had to change its logo and get new papers (papers which say that the club's name is FC FCSB SA with it's HQ in Mogosoaia and having yellow-blue colors and that it was founded in 2003, when he took over Steaua). Only post 2003 results would, technically belong to Becali. And now they are still quarreling over the fact that this means FCSB should have no right to play in the 1st league or UCL or UEFA showing on their website that FCSB won the 1986 European Cup. Don't take these as 100% facts, it's very complicated, this is just what I made out of what I read.
Great insight mate thank you! It’s always baffled me that so many Romanian sides go bust that’s all. I remember Unirea Urziceni beating Rangers in the Champions League a few years back under the management of Dan Petrescu and now they no longer exist!
Howbig is the gap in quality between the 2nd league and the 1st league? Are promoted team likely to get to europe?
It used to be quite big, but, surprisingly, the newly promoted teams from this season are doing really well so far.
3rd league: 1500 away fans (ultras) of FC U 1948 Craiova weren't allowed inside the new stadium of Turnu Magurele (2000 seats, 3 million euro) because they chanted against the head of the ruling party of Romania, whose son owns the team.
Post about 1st League: The teams from the Liga 1 are doing pretty much as expected. The top 3 consists of favourites FCSB, followed by en-titre champs CFR Cluj and Astra Giurgiu. The current surprise is last year's promototion Sepsi Sfantul Gheorghe who are currently in the 4th place. They managed to stay in after coming 3rd in the relegation group. 5th place is held by CSU Craiova and 6th by always money-struggling Gaz Metan Medias. These are the 6 teams that would play in the title group. The next teams are: Poli Iasi - 7th, FC Viitorul, Gheorghe Hagi's team - 8th, newly-promoted Dunarea Calarasi - 9th, popular but struggling Dinamo Bucharest - 10th, Concordia Chiajna - 11th, FC Botosani - 12th, newly-promoted Hermannstadt - 13th and last place, FC Voluntari - 14th. It seems that the generally hated Chiajna and Voluntari might finally relegate. Why hated? They are teams from towns that are basically integrated into Bucharest with almost no supporters, held where they are by local authorities who use the clubs to deturn funds. Matches at those stadium almost never provide any atmosphere, unless the away fans who are locked in a cage do it. Early signs show that the 3 teams fighting for the title will again be FCSB, Astra and CFR Cluj. FCSB will hope that its owner won't keep his habit of meddling with the selection (which he failed so far). CFR Cluj struggled after changing Dan Petrescu with whom they won the title. They had 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw in the last 5 league matches + their disappointing defeat with Dudelange.
@FranniesTache will love this Thats awesome, proper dedication, that! Don't know anything about Romanian football so this is a wonderful insight, thank you!
