First Division. Well, dramatic battle between Steaua and Dinamo and big part of it was backroom battle between Securitate (Dinamo) and Army – Ceausescu’s son (Steaua). Intriguing in itself, for that was a battle inside the Communist Party between formidable foes and one major reason both clubs had the best players and coaches in the country. No doubt, there was tampering of games – part of it became internationally known by the scandalous manipulations to win the Golden Shoe award to the point of killing it. Yet, on the field, the rival teams were objectively too strong for anybody else – one can hardly attribute artificiality of the talent of Hagi, Belodedici, Boloni, Lacatus, Piturca (Steaua) or Raducioiu, Rednic, Mateut, Andone, Camataru (Dinamo), to name but a few. And new talent already was popping up: Dan Petrescu, Dumitrescu, and others. Both clubs used their mighty powers to scoop whatever talent emerged in the country, fighting each other all the way. It was hard to see anything else behind the battle of the giants – perhaps there was not a lot left to see, but the strong performance of Victoria (Bucharest) is worth mentioning: originally a farm club of Dinamo, they were recently promoted and hastily renamed to Victoria to cut at least the most obvious ties to Dinamo. How independent was Victoria is hard to say – to satisfy UEFA they were made an independent club, at least on the surface. Domestically, Steaua’s powerful backing perhaps played controlling role, watching closely Victoria’s behavior, so perhaps they would not act just as Dinamo’s helpers, but coach and some players were formerly Dinamo stuff. Again, apart from the dirty schemes, Victoria had surprisingly good team and performed very well. On the field, they were fresh and somewhat pleasant surprise, reaching international stage as well – no more than the UEFA Cup, but that was all left by dominant Steaua and Dinamo to the rest of Romania.
CSM Suceava finished last with 25 points and was relegated.
Petrolul (Ploiesti) – 17th with 26 points and relegated.
Politehnica (Timisoara) – 16th with 26 points and relegated.
Olt (Scornicesti) – 15th with 28 points.
Sportul Studentesc (Bucharest) – 14th with 28 points.
Rapid (Bucharest) – 13th with 29 points.
SC Bacau – 12th with 29 points.
ASA (Targu Mures) – 11th with 29 points.
Universitatea (Cluj) – 10th with 29 points.
Arges (Pitesti) – 9th with 29 points.
FCM Brasov – 8th with 29 points.
Corvinul (Hunedoara) – 7th with 30 points.
Flacara (Moreni) – 6th with 33 points.
Universitatea (Craiova) – 5th with 36 points.
Otelul (Galati) – 4th with 39 points.
Victoria (Bucharest) – 3rd with 40 points. The best bellow Steaua-Dinamo, but still with strong Dinamo tint: long time Dinamo coach Dumitru Nicolae-Nicusor was at the helm, for instance.
Dinamo (Bucharest) – 2nd with 63 points. Observe the difference: 23 points ahead of 3rd placed Victoria. They lost only 1 match. Won 30 out of 34 rounds. Scored 107 goals. Permitted only 25 in their own net. And such fantastic record was still not enough for winning the championship…
Steaua (Bucharest) prevailed over the arch-enemy by a point. If Dinamo’s record was fantastic, Steaua bested it – 30 wins and 4 ties. Not a single lost match. 114-18 scoring record, very likely the best ever in the world: +96 goal-difference. 64 points and the title was theirs, like the year before. Now they had 13 titles altogether.