The pre-war period The
Bucharest architect Gheorghe Radu Stănculescu discovered in a document from the archives of the
British Navy that English sailors were playing football in the
Danube area in 1865. This detail emerges from a document from the archives of the British Navy. It is a report by the commander of the military ship HMS "Cockatrice", marine lieutenant Gillson, addressed to Admiral Lord Paget, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet of the "Royal Navy". In his report dated January 26, 1866 (see facsimiles), Lieutenant Gillson disclosed that he had ordered "the vessel's usual anchorage to be changed to another place, where she was now exposed to the breezes, and near which was a field which served as an excellent recreation ground for cricket, quoits and football". Another article from the press of the time from 1888 mentioned that in
Arad, "a group of young people was hitting the ball". In 1890, the dentist Iuliu Weiner brought to
Arad - from
London, where he had studied in England - the first rules of the game written on paper, as well as the first "real" soccer ball on the territory of today's Romania. (Until then, the balls were "improvised"). Weiner promotes the new game, demonstrating its practice on the field in front of the current Arada high school no. 1. On June 25, 1899, in Timișoara, the first football match on the current territory of Romania was organized on the Velocitas field, between students of the 6th and 7th grades of the Piarist High School, under the leadership of Professor Karl Müller. This was the first football match that respected the rules of the game from that period, although football had been played in Bucharest since 1885, in the area of the "Bolta Rece" restaurant (in the area where the Arc de Triomphe is located today). On April 26, 1902, in Timișoara, young people from the
Iosefin neighborhood founded the Timișoara Football Club, later the Timișoara Athletic Club. It was the first exclusive football club founded on today's territory of Romania. But the first interclub football match took place on August 20, 1902, on the field at Pădurea Verde, in front of 100 spectators. FC Timișoara lost to Reuniunea de Sport Lugoj with a score of 2-3. In
Cluj, as early as 1875, sports tournaments of the city's multi-sport clubs were organized. Football was not allowed within the city limits, so the games took place on the meadow to the east (today Nicolae Titulescu Boulevard). Since 1900, football matches have also taken place within these events, with the winners receiving silver medals and the finalists bronze. From the 1907-1908 season, the first official matches on the territory of our country took place in Cluj, within the second Hungarian league, followed the following season in Arad. The first official football match in the Kingdom of Romania was played in 1907 near Kiseleff Street, Bucharest on an improvised pitch. The Romanians just watched. The competitors were English and German, employed in the textile or oil industry in Bucharest, Ploiesti or Câmpina. The chronicle of that game, published in the extraordinary magazine "From the world of sports", is considered a birth certificate for Romanian football. The first domestic football competition was the ASAR Cup (Association of Athletic Societies of Romania), founded in October 1909. It included three clubs: Colentina and Olimpia from Bucharest (which won the title), and United from Ploiesti.
The interwar period The first national championship Division A with all the reunited territories was in the 1921-22 season, and the most successful Romanian teams from the interwar period are Venus Bucharest, with seven titles, Chinezul Timișoara with six (consecutive) titles and Ripensia Timișoara with four. Since 1934, the Romanian Cup has also been held, the first winner being Ripensia Timișoara. Also in that season, the B division was established, followed two years later by the C division. In 1930 and 1934, the Romanian national team participated in the world championships. At the end of the 30s, the Romanian teams make their debut in the European cups, a resounding victory achieved by Ripensia defeating AC Milan 3-0.
The post-war period After the war, teams like UTA Arad, FC Argeș Pitești and the University of Craiova win the championship and qualify for the upper stages of European competitions. The most famous football club in Romania is
Steaua București, which in 1986 was the first team from Eastern Europe and the only one from Romania to win the European Champions Cup. Also, in 1989 he played another European Champions Cup final. It is the club with the most titles, 25, and the most Romanian Cups, 21. Steaua also managed to equal the performance of Chinese Timișoara, winning the title 6 times in a row between 1992-98. Stele's rivals, Dinamo Bucharest, won 18 titles and 13 cups, and played a semi-final of the European Champions Cup in 1984, and in 1990 the semi -final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. Under the management of Walter Zenga, Steaua qualified for the UEFA Cup groups in the 2004–05 season, with Zenga qualifying a Romanian team in the "European Spring" for the first time since 1993 (when Steaua also reached the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup ). Since 2006, League I is composed of 18 teams, of which the last 4 are relegated. This year the championship changed its name from Division A to League I. In the 2005-2006 season,
Steaua București and Rapid Bucharest reached the quarter-finals of the 2006 UEFA Cup. Steaua reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, being eliminated on the edge of
Middlesbrough FC and qualified three times in a row in the groups of the Champions League. Among the outstanding matches in the League are those with Dynamo Kyiv, score 4-1 and with Lyon, 1-1. At the start of the 2006–07 season, the competition was forced to change its name from Division A to League I due to a trademark dispute over the name. In the new format, Dinamo Bucharest won its 18th title in history, 16th in a row for teams from Bucharest. CFR Cluj opened the way for a decade of dominance in the province, teams like Unirea Urziceni, Oțelul Galați, Astra Giurgiu or Viitorul Constanța won the title for the first time in history. Unirea Urziceni accumulated 8 points, a record for Romania in the league groups. CFR Clujwas the most prolific club in the last two decades, winning 8 championships, 4 cups and 2 super cups. CFR Cluj also produced some records, 10 points in the Champions League groups, 12 points in the Europa League groups and 10 points in the Conference League groups and a premiere, it was the first club from the province to win the Romanian Super Cup. Among the most important players in the domestic championship in recent history are Ionel Danciulescu with the most appearances (515) and Eric de Oliveira foreign player with the most goals scored in League I (66). == National championship ==