The miracle of Urziceni goes on. Last night's match being a perfect encapsulation of their rise. Outclassed in all areas of the pitch, totally outplayed, they somehow contrived to win. At one point after about half an hour the stat flashed up that Sevilla had had 7 shots (5 on target) and Urziceni had mustered, well, 0. This hadn't changed much as the half wore down, and then out of nowhere, and completely unchallenged, Dragutinovic heads ludicrously into his own net from a half way line free kick pumped unthinkingly into the box. The second half was better and Urziceni did actually carve out a few chances, but ultimately the shot count was 5-14, and the possession 31%-69%. Sheffield Wednesday's Dan Petrescu (TM) goes from strength to strength. They have now guaranteed themselves European football in the spring (probably the only Romanian team who will still be in Europe then), and a draw in Stuttgart in the last match would put them into the next stage of the CL. I think they've got more CL points than Steaua managed in the last umpteen seasons combined.

The curse of the Europa League struck again after the last series of games - each round of matches has ended up with a coach of one of the entrants leaving his club. Steaua first, them Dinamo twice, and now CFR Cluj who disposed of Conceicao after the last defeat to Sparta Prague and replaced him with yet another Italian-who-has-made-his-name-in-Serie-B&C, this time Andrea Mandorlini. This seemed a little harsh on Conceicao as CFR were top of the league at the time, but there you go.

Another set of fairly inconclusive and inconsistent results in the top of the table, aside from Vaslui who have now won 5 in a row and who are threatening to be this season's Urziceni. Dinamo and Rapid drew 1-1, before Dinamo lost to Timisoara. Steaua lost this weekend to Astra Ploiesti while Vaslui beat CFR Cluj

After 14 games:
Vaslui 28 pts
Rapid 26
Timiosoara, CFR Cluj, Steaua, Urziceni 25
Dinamo 22
Brasov 21

Who the fuck are Kuban Krasnodar anyway?

Not sure if this made the news outside Romania, but I'm assuming there would have been some coverage given Petrescu's links with English football. But anyway, he's walked out on Urziceni and seems about to sign up with the Russian second division side mentioned above, for 3 times the money. It all sounds a bit mental frankly, since he could probably have had his pick of vacant club jobs anywhere in Europe after the last couple of seasons.

Romania, by the way, is on the extended winter break footballwise, and hence there's very little to talk about (aside from Petrescu's departure and daily updates of incredibly tedious minutiae from the Steaua training camp which seem to fascinate the media here)

Half time table (a tad tight at the top):
CFR Cluj 34
U. Urziceni 34
Steaua 34
Timisoara 31
Rapid 31
Vaslui 30
Brasov 27
Dinamo 27
O. Galati 22
GM. Medias 21
P. Targu Jiu 20
A. Ploiesti 18
P. Iasi 18
U. Craiova 17
----------
International 16
U. Alba Iulia 14
G Bistrita 14
C Piatra Neamt 10

Oh and happy new year OTF

Witb the waltz of the minnows proving a welcome break from the gruesome twosome, surely now must be the time for a welcome come back by my Romanian faves, UT Arad - or the slightly less snappy FCM UTA Arad as they are currently known.

Ahoy there, ad hoc. Need your take on today's rumours linking your two great passions - Romanian football and Arsenal. Cluj's Lacina Traore to Arsenal, to be precise. What can you tell us about this alleged wunderkind?

And we're back. After a very long winter break, which almost seemed like it was not going to be long enough when Romania was frozen and covered in large quantities of snow just about a week ago. But the sun came out just in time, and towns stopped being carpeted in snow, and instead turned into a country full of Venices.

A winter break full of not very interesting stories, as the media desperately tried to read whatever they could into the lack of action, and a transfer window that just showed up how little money there now is in Romanian football (and Romania as a whole, frankly), as players moved overseas en masse. The only notable incomers being Romanians Laszlo Sepsi, fresh from a disastrous tour the Iberian peninsula at Benfica and Racing Santander (to Timisoara), Nicolae Dica back from Greece to CFR Cluj (but he got swapped for Bogdan Mara who is a better player, so the Romanian league lost out again on that one), and Cristian Sapunaru who's indefinitely banned from playing in Portugal after some dust up in the tunnel after the Benfica-Porto game, and has fetched up at Rapid. Not quite sure how he can play here but not there, but what do I know.

Leaving the country, among others, is Steaua's best player Dayro Moreno (who rarely got games because he had some kind of row with Becali). Back to South America for him at Once Caldas.

A rough indication of the strength of the league these days can be seen with one of its best players (Gabriel Tamas) leaving for West Brom, while a couple of players (whose names I cannot recall) have come in from Swindon and Northampton.

Anyway, Urziceni managed to hold off Liverpool for much of the match at the feared "Anfield Road", despite the fact that (a) they've just lost their highly successful coach; (b) they're a village side from a fairly crap league; and (c) they hadn't played a competitive match for over 2 months. Not sure what the UK press made of it, but if there was any bigging up of Liverpool's win, then whoever wrote it needs to be taken to Urziceni and left to fend for themselves among the feral packs of dogs.

And, the big kick off this weekend was well worth waiting for. Months of non-stories about Steaua's training camps and how exciting they would be and blah blah fucking blah - and then they lose 3-1 at home to rock bottom of the table Piatra Neamt. Oh what joy, especially for the ABS brigade (chief patron: me). They were 1-0 up too. Fucking ace.

In last night's real big match of the weekend (not that you'd know, since even today 3 days later the front and back pages are still given over to the Steaua defeat), CFR Cluj won 1-0 at Urziceni and pretty much dominated from start to finish, with Traore playing fantastically (I hadn't heard that rumour AG, and sorry hadn't seen your question. Obviously I hope he doesn't go - especially after last night's performance)

Not much else happened, though Rapid did lose at Iasi. But who cares? When Steaua are humiliated all is good with the world.

Cheers for the update, ad hoc. I've developed a very healthy loathing for Steaua thanks to these threads.

I don't think anyone in the UK media was bigging up Liverpool beating Urziceni.

ad hoc wrote:
Not sure what the UK press made of it, but if there was any bigging up of Liverpool's win, then whoever wrote it needs to be taken to Urziceni and left to fend for themselves among the feral packs of dogs.

Currently just a little tight at the top, with Cluj on 40 points, Timisoara and Steaua on 39 and four others on 38 points.

Sorry I've let this thread lie dormant for so long. Mostly it's because I've pretty much lost interest in Romanian football as it slowly sinks from view, with no money and no real future. This is exacerbated by the fact that one can no longer watch it on TV unless you have a particular cable system that most people don't have. It's all available on a pay-per-view online system, but frankly that exists solely to serve the large and more cash flush Romanian diaspora in Italy and Spain.

Since I last contributed the top clubs have all contrived to throw away chance after chance to take the league by the scruff of the neck, and frankly putting together 2 wins in succession has been enough to catapult any team to the top of the league. CFR Cluj scraped a few scrappy wins in March and found themselves 6 points clear with 5 games left, but they then lost one and drew one of the next two and were back just ahead of the pack.

However, last night they managed an amazing win, about which I can tell you very little (that TV thing again) in which they went 2-0 down away to Universitatea Craiova, and then had a man sent off before the end of the first half. yet somehow in the second half they actually managed to come back and win it 3-2, with a last minute penalty sealing the win. Along with other team's failings this has once again put them very firmly in the driving seat, and happened on the same day that Steaua lost again and are now mathematically certain not to win the league, which is always good news. They are fairly certain to not finish in the top 2 either, which means no CL next season and lots of media wailing and misery. Ha. Once again we will have a non-Bucharest team winning the league whatever happens (3rd year in a row) with CFR Cluj, Unirea Urziceni, FC Vaslui, and FC Timisoara the only teams with a shot at it. Tonight Urziceni travel to Gloria Bistrita for a game they must win to put pressure on CFR.

CFR Cluj Pd 32 pts 63
Vaslui 32 59
Urziceni 31 59
Timisoara 32 58
Steaua 32 56
Dinamo 32 52

CFR are champions again, for the second time in three years. They can still be caught technically by Urziceni, but on head to head CFR won both fixtures so are guaranteed the title. All European places could be pretty much wrapped up when the penultimate round of games is over tonight, if Urziceni win (which they should)

ad hoc wrote:
Sorry I've let this thread lie dormant for so long. Mostly it's because I've pretty much lost interest in Romanian football as it slowly sinks from view, with no money and no real future. This is exacerbated by the fact that one can no longer watch it on TV unless you have a particular cable system that most people don't have. It's all available on a pay-per-view online system, but frankly that exists solely to serve the large and more cash flush Romanian diaspora in Italy and Spain.

Er...how did this happen? Who thought this was a good idea?

Free market innit? GSP (for it is they) stumped up more cash, and thus they got the rights to the league. Can't imagine that it's worked out well for them, unless the 1.5 million Romanians in Italy and Spain really are willing to pay to watch Steaua lose again on a weekly basis.

In other free market news, the Romanian government has just launched a package of cuts that would make even Thatcher blush. 25% pay cut for all state sector employees, 15% pension cut, half the hospitals and a large number of schools in the country to close, maternity benefits slashed. But there is still money available to buy a bunch of US military jets and host the revised version of the ridiculous European missile shield that the US wanted to put in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Motherfuckers

However this is possibly stuff for a new thread.

And following last night's games, with one match left in the league...

CFR Cluj 66pts
Urziceni 63
Steaua, Vaslui, Timisoara 59

CFR in group stages of CL, Urziceni in qualifiers, where because of the coefficient ranking thingy they're probably face Tottenham or Sevilla or Sampdoria or similar. Other 3 in the Europe League. I have the feeling that Dinamo alone in 6th will get a further Europa League place, as the cup final is between CFR Cluj and Vaslui. I need to locate that Dutch bloke's comprehensive round up website to be sure.

Only thing to play for on last weekend is the last couple of relegation spots. Alba Iulia and Piatra Neamt are already down, Poli Iasi and Targu Jiu have 31 points and Uni Craiova have 33. 2 from those 3 will go down too.

ad hoc wrote:
Free market innit? GSP (for it is they) stumped up more cash, and thus they got the rights to the league. Can't imagine that it's worked out well for them, unless the 1.5 million Romanians in Italy and Spain really are willing to pay to watch Steaua lose again on a weekly basis.

...haven't they heard of divvying up domestic and foreign rights separately?

Well they might have, but I suspect so flushed with their business model were they that they bid for it all. Their website has free videos of all the highlights of all the games, so you can watch it if you want locally, except that if you're going to spend Monday morning trawling through highlights of football, you're probably more likely to want to watch Spanish football or something.

They put in a bid for the lot bundled together, it must have outbid everyone else and they accordingly won. Either that or more likely they put together a bid for the lot and then a side bung to the person responsible for making the decision and there you are.

It is particularly irresponsible given that Eurosport 2 has a deal in Romania to show the Premier League. That's a free channel that basically everyone gets, so you can watch loads of games of English top flight football (usually 4 or 5 per weekend), and you can't watch the Romanian league. This is not conducive to keeping up interest.

I have no idea how long this deal is in place for, but those in charge must have realised by now that it's killing Romanian football.

Urziceni in qualifiers, where because of the coefficient ranking thingy they're probably face Tottenham or Sevilla or Sampdoria or similar.

Last year, Timisoara could have drawn from Shakhtar Donetsk, Sporting Lisbon, Celtic, Anderlecht or Panathinaikos in the third round and Arsenal, Lyon, Stuttgart, Sporting or Panathanaikos in the fourth.

To be honest, being seeded wouldn't have made it that much easier - Sparta Praha, Twente Enschede, Dinamo Moscow or Sivasspor in the third round, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Celtic or Anderlecht in the fourth.

Yes, Urziceni will, as far as I can tell, have to face one of Zenit, Ajax, Fenerbahce, Dinamo Kiev or Braga in the 3rd round and then (if they qualify) Sevilla, Zenit, Ajax, Spurs or Werder Bremen in the 4th.

And I totally agree that they shouldn't be seeded (even if I agreed with seeding in the first place, or more pertinently that non-Champions should be allowed in at all)

Sure, the point I was making was (at this stage) seeding doesn't make that much difference, partly because of the overall quality, partly because teams from strong leagues but with little recent European pedigree get low rankings - Atletico and Fiorentina last year, Spurs and Samp this year.

The change to allow separate qualifying for non-champions and champions obviously has made it easier for champions in smaller countries to qualify, but it's made it very difficult for second place teams in mid-range leagues, like Romania and Scotland.

What's the story with Vaslui? Don't recognise the name.

Vaslui is a small unfashionable town in Moldova (Eastern Romania) on the border of the Republic of Moldova. They're quite a likeable club actually, owned by an ex-referee Adrian Parumboiu and managed by Marius Lacatus. They're also the home of Wesley, Brazilian favourite of Steveeeee and Erwin's podcast who came from Leixoes and to my surprise is still there a year and a half later and very much the fans' favourite.

They were in the Europa League this year and went out one round before the group stages to AEK Athens. (They were also in it a year earlier too, via the Intertoto, losing in the first round to Slavia Prague)