Romanian Domestic Football 2019-2020

[wannabeontop]

Also, Arad go up to Liga 1.

[subway14]

btw interesting stat from Liga 2: in the play-offs (15 matches) not a single team won at home

[Firnen]

No relegation in Romania, expansion to 16 teams, Chindia will play a play-out against Miovieni.

[krdel]

What is with Astra matches?

[bossake]

Despite is not a surprise that Cfr winned the title the way they winned against Craiova was really something special. Nobody expected them to win in such a clear manner. And this contains also a return from an early advantage 1-0 took by Craiova in the start of the game.

Considering the regular season the title win of Cfr is totally deserved. Considering the playoff things are not so clear anymore.

All the respect for how Cfr managed to win this title with all their problems. Financial problems, covid problems (their coach wasnt avaiable in the last 3 games) etc.

The Romanian Federation decided to stop the season despite in the playoff some teams had 2 games less (Astra) and in the playout Dinamo had 5 games not played.
For everyone to be happy they decided to change the format and they adopted a 16team league from the next year. Within this scenario only the last team from the league played a relegation battle against the 3rd from league2.
As expected, Chindia Targoviste winned easily this tie against CS Mioveni 2-0 and 1-1. so this year nobody relegated.

In the playoff FCSB is feeling bad because their game with Astra was cancelled and they finished 5th while with a win+a lose of Astra vs Craiova they would finish 3rd and with a draw they would finished 4th. Finishing higher means more money from TV rights. between 3rd place and 5th place is a difference about 300.000euros.

Final standings:

1. Cfr Cluj 49
2. Csu Craiova 44 (1 game less vs Astra)
3. Astra Giurgiu 33 (2 games less vs Craiova and FCSB)
4. Fc Botosani 32
5. FCSB 31 (1 games less vs Astra)
6. Gaz Metan Medias 25
-----------------
7. Viitorul 43
8. Hermmanstatd 35 (2 games less vs Dinamo)
9. Sepsi OSK 34 (1 games less vs Dinamo)
10. Academica Clinceni 32
11. Fc Voluntari 31
12.CSM Politehnica Iasi 30
13.Dinamo Bucuresti 25 (5 games less)
14. Chindia Targoviste 23 (2 games less vs Dinamo)

-------------------------

In the second league the last round was exciting. The biggest surprise was that Mioveni wasnt able to win home (or at least draw) vs a non motivated Petrolul Ploiesti. Even a draw would meaned that Mioveni would be directly promoted in the first league.
But the highest losers are Turris which leaded away in Rapid 0-1 until 96 minute. An equaliser from Rapid meaned nothing for Rapid but sent Turris from directly promotion to 4th place. After this late goal the match ended. The biggest beneficiary of this Rapid goal was Fc Arges Pitesti which because of this goal directly promoted instead of going to the playoff as a 3rd placed.

Cs Mioveni - Petrolul Ploiesti 1-2
Rapid Bucuresti - Turris Oltul 1-1
Fc Arges - UTA Arad 1-1

1. UTA Arad 30
2. Fc Arges 27
3. CS Mioveni 27
4. Turris Oltul 26
5. Petrolul Ploiesti 25
6. Rapid Bucuresti 25

Next year at the Second Division and 3rd Division is still unclear how they will function. Because the clubs dont have money to pay the covid tests that need to be make weekly.

Need to mention that Fc Universitatea Craiova (the team owned by the original owner of Craiova) achieved promotion in the 2nd league and also CSA Steaua Bucuresti (the club owned by the Romanian Army and which is supported by the big majority of the Steaua ultras) managed to promote from the 4th league into the 3rd league after 3 years.

Also some news about the new stadiums in Bucharest. The stadium of Steaua will be ready in Octomber-November while the stadium of Rapid will be ready for playing at the start of the next year.

New stadium has also the league1 new promoted UTA Arad which will be inaugurated somewhere in September this year.

[cinebelul]

What is with Astra matches?

They dont play that matches anymore because of corona, neither Astra, nor Dinamo. Season is over, UTA and FC Arges added to Liga1, which will have 16 teams starting with next season. Imho, total nonsense to split the Liga in that format after 30 MDs, having a play-off with 6 teams and a play-out with 10 teams which will play only 1 game against each other Will that games be on neutral place? Because if not, then some teams will have 5 home and 4 away games and others 4 home and 5 away...

[Funkmaster]

Who will play in the new Ghencea stadium? FCSB or “old/new“ Steaua from third division. I looked it up on the internet, it‘s a nice stadium

What‘s the current state of FCSB? I guess they absolutely need to play GS, they‘ve missed it the last 2 seasons.

[Kicker Conspiracy]

Odd numbers of home/away games in playoffs isn't that uncommon: Polish Ekstraklassa splits 8/8 with seven playoff games, which is pretty similar.

In Scotland (and Northern Ireland) it's more bizarre: 6/6 split after 33 games (so 16 or 17 games at home), then five playoff games. I think they always manage to end up with 18 home and 18 away in total, but quite often one team has to play three away games against one team to make that happen.

[bossake]

Who will play in the new Ghencea stadium? FCSB or “old/new“ Steaua from third division. I looked it up on the internet, it‘s a nice stadium

What‘s the current state of FCSB? I guess they absolutely need to play GS, they‘ve missed it the last 2 seasons.

In Ghencea stadium will play for sure the CSA Steaua team (team of the Army currently in league 3). The stadium is in their property, in the Army property. FCSB also will want to play there but the ultras of the CSA Steaua and also the people from the Army will not agree with this. But the stadium being in the property of a public institution - Army - there is chance that FCSB cannot be refused to play there (of course they will pay a rent for this). Anyway the owner of FCSB said he dont want to make disputes so he will not fight very hard for playing there.

Also because CSA Steaua is in the 3rd league is possible that even they to dont play there until they will eventually reach second or even first division because of maintenance costs. Specially in this period when fans on the stadium are hard to believe that will appear in the next months or even years. They have a small pitch near the big stadium where they plays from their restart in 2017.

Of course FCSB needs desperately the money from EL groups but I think they accepted that reaching EL groups is harder and harder for a Romanian team with such small budgets. Romanian teams remained way behind other "European football second level countries" (like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria etc)thinking of money spent. Cfr Cluj, FCSB and Craiova all of them spends about 7-9 milions Eur per year which is very small for those days. FCSB also cut their costs, this summer they didnt paied for nobody as a transfer fee, bringed only cheap players. Also in the last years they invested some milions in a Academy from where they hopes to produce some players. Also they have Florinel Coman and Dennis Man which are seen by the owner as a money makers players - the owner dreams to sell them for 15 milions each )). But is hard to believe this with the team not playing anymore regular in groups.

[cinebelul]

Odd numbers of home/away games in playoffs isn't that uncommon: Polish Ekstraklassa splits 8/8 with seven playoff games, which is pretty similar.

In Scotland (and Northern Ireland) it's more bizarre: 6/6 split after 33 games (so 16 or 17 games at home), then five playoff games. I think they always manage to end up with 18 home and 18 away in total, but quite often one team has to play three away games against one team to make that happen.

Its nevertheless somehow unfair. This is no point that some few other countries do it as well...
Home advantage is often very important in Romania, especially for weaker teams. The quality of Romanian championship is poor. The gap between some top teams you see every year in eurocups and the rest is bigger than in other strong champonships from the west. Nevertheless, its not unusual that top teams fail sometimes to defeat bottom teams away, and the advantage of playing on home pitch for the the weak team is decisive ...

And...splitting the championship after 30MDs in 6 and 10 teams for play-off/out ?
First, 16 teams is ok for the quality of football in Romania and 30MDs are enough.
And if they want to have some more games playing play-off/out (money...), I think it would be much better top 6 teams for play-off and bottom 4 teams for play-out. For the rest of them should be end of the season after 30MDs, especially during that play-out we had a lot of totally pointless games last yrs