Romania. Ranked 15th presently. If Czechoslovakia had a ‘Velvet Revolution’, the fall of Communism in Romania was bloody. Football perhaps was not in the minds of most people, but it went on and from the distance of time presents a dry record looking absolutely normal. But behind the statistics the picture was quite turbulent, even fantastic. In a nutshell, Romania had talented and already well known abroad talented generation of players – now they were going to play in West in flocks. Miodrag Belodedici’s case was reversed – his sentence for running away from Romania voided, everything ‘normal’, he would not only go back to Romania without fear, but included again in the national team. Two clubs were severely punished as the sourest cases of Communist meddling in the sport, yet, the battle for the trophies in this championship was still between Steaua and Dinamo and one should pause here when speaking of political reforms and football. Yes, those were the leading Romanian clubs and from this angle nothing surprising the due was still head and shoulders above all other teams. But the leading clubs also were the most representative of Communist rule with all it’s twists and turns: Steaua belonged to the Army, but during the 1980s became almost a private toy of Nicolae Ceausescu’s son – reminding one of the early 1950s, when Stalin’s son made almost a private club of VVS (Moscow). Dinamo belonged to the Police – naturally, not to the Traffic Police, but the top layer of Police – the Securitate, the Romanian analogue of KGB. Both clubs, like everywhere in the Communist Europe, represented the most powerful and ominous Communist institutions. The rivalry between the institutions were large, vicious, behind the scene, and football was just another aspect of this battles for upper hand. In Romania, it was almost ironic, for Securitate served Nicolae Ceausescu and his family, the whole rule was based on the Secret Police, but since the son of the ruler ‘owned’ Steaua it was not easy at all to put down the rival club. So, both clubs fought perhaps more behind the scene than on the football field – using power, influence, intimidation, every dirty trick to top the rival. The picture of corruption was quite hidden, thanks to gifted generation of players in both clubs and real success, especially the international triumphs of Steaua. It was classic dilemma: everybody knew how corrupt and manipulated Romanian football was, yet, international success excused that, because success was a matter of national pride. The list of abuse and falsifications was so long and gross, it is almost impossible to say which element was the worst: the goal-scoring manipulations so a Romanian to get the Golden Shoe or the inclusion of Dinamo’s second team in the First Division, hastily re-naming it Victoria in order to play in the UEFA Cup. Or may be the sudden rise of Olt – representing the village where Ceausescu was born and supplying it was quite a big stadium as well.
Back in the 1950s the team of Stalin’s son, VVS (Moscow), was entirely dissolved with the first slight shift of political power – the ‘owner’ eventually went to prison, the top players, recruited by him – to other clubs, and VVS never existed again. During the fall Communism football everywhere in Eastern Europe went to similar ‘punishment’ of clubs created by the Communist rule and representing it. Since the model was Soviet, all such clubs were either belonging to the Police or to the Army and were hated. But… there was ‘but’: it was a problem of popularity. With time such clubs became popular – to a different degree, so the dismantling of Communist sport was tricky and generally unsuccessful, for even hated and not very popular clubs eventually survived. If in the early 1990’s Dynamo (Berlin), Dukla (Prague), Honved (Budapest), Dynamo (Zagreb) were renamed and went into sharp decline, nearing even complete dissolution, today all of them exist with their Communist names – it turned out there were enough supporters to keep them going or the trademark of the name, representing old success, became valuable enough with time. Generations of fans were brought up supporting the Communist name and not any other was able to substitute it – neither new (Dynamo Berlin becoming FC Berlin), nor old pre-Communist one (Honved Budapest revamping the name of the club once upon a time renamed Honved – Kispest Budapest). Many popular clubs simply had no other name, for they created entirely by the Communist rule (Crvena zvezda and Partizan Belgrade, CSKA Sofia) – the Romania case falls into this this category: Steaua and Dinamo were vastly popular, but they were not based on some old pre-Communist clubs. Renaming them would not work – the fans did not want that at all. The irony of life… exactly the leading clubs were the most representative of the hated Communist power, they committed most abuses and violations, yet, they were the most popular and justice… ended then and there. It was enough to remove direct Communist involvement and keep everything else, not even investigating well-known corruption and abuse of power associated with the clubs. So… investigation of crimes was directed elsewhere, for some justice had to be done, demanded to be done. And it was done… Victoria (Bucharest) was dissolved and soon after them Olt (Scornicesti) went down and disappeared… for a while. Victoria was artificial club belonging to Securitate, no doubt about it, but it only there second club – the prime one was Dinamo, which suddenly slipped out of sight, all vitriol directed towards Victoria and ‘justice’ was done, the guilty punished. No problem here – Victoria had no fans, an easy target. In view of the bloody events during the fall of Communism in Romania the perception of Steaua suddenly changed: the Army was ‘innocent’, for blood was spilled by Securitate. ‘Innocense’, with time would be transformed into the myth of resisting Communism – as if Ceausescu’s son resisted Communist power, represented by Securitate, backing up… Ceausescu family and its power over the country. Similar myths popped-up around East Europe – people believing that the arch-representatives of Communist rule and its abuses were actually resisting Communism and were the cradles of anti-Communism. Time played its role in that – the strongest clubs became the most popular clubs, new generations knew nothing else but those particular clubs, by 1990 new fans emerged in the classic manner: the father introduces his son to his club, then the son to his son and so on. Nothing can destroy popular club, only ungainly past will be replaced by plausible myths. So… nothing changed – looking back to already distant 1989-90 season one sees powerful Dinamo and Steaua. The greatest stars were found playing for either one or the other, so ‘objectively’ speaking – yes, those were really and truly the strongest and nothing to do with politics. No dirty laundry. But, yes, there was dirty laundry, Communist dirty laundry… yes, there was, but it belonged to our enemies. We were clean. Everything simplified by myth: Ceausescu’s son? If one supports Steaua, he was a hero making and keeping us strong despite the dirty tricks of Securitate. If one supports Dinamo the story is reversed – Securitate resisted the power hungry shit and his criminal abuses. If one supports another club, than the myth of constant victimization is established – the Communist clubs repressed everybody else and prevented us from glory. This is perhaps the most plausible myth, but it is still largely a myth, for even without totalitarian practices a player like Hagi would not stay with his original club, but move to the strongest. So, turmoil or not, politics or not, football was played in 1990 and the season ended as before: with the two biggest clubs way above the rest and entangled in familiar battle between themselves. The only difference was the ominous doubt that those clubs would stay strong on international level, for now every player was looking to play abroad and there were no more restrictions for doing so. It was still too early the map of Romanian football to change drastically. The top league was still of 18 teams, Second Division – still having 3 leagues of 18 teams each and the only new thing happened at the end of the season when Second Division relegation play-offs were staged, because Victoria (Bucharest) was dissolved, leaving one empty spot to be filled. A bit later another empty spot emerged because of the case of Olt (Scornicesti). Just as historic footnote:
CFR (Cluj), a club with long and successful past, was now out of First and Second Division football. This could be seen as the general decline of clubs related from start to the railroads: Rapid (Bucharest) was in Second Division, as well as other ‘railroad’ clubs – that is, to a point, the ‘genuine working class’ clubs, mostly originating from pre-Communist times.
Second Division. Three leagues of 18 teams, the winners promoted, the last 4 relegated. The old structure, however, not entirely the old one, for Serie III had 16 teams instead of 18 for some reason – very likely a result of political troubles – and only 2 teams were going down from it. Which eventually became only 1 directly team, for those ending 15th in every Second Division league went to relegation play-offs because of the empty spots left by Victoria and Olt. Typically, most clubs playing in the Second Division were obscure and only former to league members fought for top positions, hoping for promotion.
Serie I. Not only in this league one should be careful of the time: from today’s point of view, there were some familiar names – but that is because recently some clubs came to play top league football. Back in 1990 even in Romania nobody counted them for anything – Foresta (Falticeni), for instance. Most teams were absolutely obscure. At real time, only the top 4 ringed a bell because of playing in First Division before: Politehnica (Iasi), Otelul (Galati), Gloria (Buzau), and Progresul (Braila). Of them only two fought for first place – Gloria and Progresul. They ended with equal points and goal-difference decided the top position.
Otelul (Galati) was the best known name in Serie I, but they managed only 3rd place this season.
Progresul (Braila) clinched the first place: like Gloria (Buzau), they finished with 48 points. 22 wins, 4 ties, 8 losses. Gloria had 21 wins, 6 ties, 7 losses. Goal-difference benefited Progresul – their rivals ended with 63-32: +31, but Progresul was much better – 69-19: +50. Thus Progresul was promoted back to First Division after considerable absence from it, so it was great and highly promising season. The club had played under different names, so no wonder they were not really recognizable.
Serie II. Three recognizable names here: CS Targoviste, Chimia (Ramnicu Valcea), and best known club playing in the second level now: Rapid (Bucharest). Like in Serie I, only 2 teams competed for top position. Most clubs were anonymous:
FCM Caracal ended 7th. One of the typical Second Division clubs – entirely unfamiliar outside Romania and nobody paying much attention to them in the country itself.
The battle for first place was between Rapid and lesser known Drobeta.
Drobeta (Turnu Severin) had a great season, considering that they small and insignificant club playing second level football, but they were still not good enough to finish first: 2nd with 45 points. 7 points ahead of 3rd placed Unirea (Alba Iulia), but 4 points behind the winners.
Rapid (Bucharest) won the championship with 49 points: 22 wins, 5 ties, 7 losses, 61-32 scoring record. Not exactly dominating, but they still ended with good lead over their rivals and earned promotion. The return to top flight was relieve and even hope for the future in view of the political changes in the country: unlike Steaua and Dinamo, Rapid was old club which managed to navigate the years of Communsim quite well, which also helped them preserving considerable number of fans. Popular and with non-Communist past, they perhaps presented a chance for real transition – may be the old clubs, not fully tainted by Communism were coming back to ‘their rightful place’. Well, for the moment it was only climbing back to First Division. A start…
Serie III. The smallest league in the Second Division – only 16 teams for some reason – but with the biggest concentration of familiar names: if in the other two leagues only Rapid (Bucharest) was really successful in the past, in Serie III played teams which used to be strong once upon a time: CSM (Resita), UT (Arad), ASA (Turgu Mures), Gloria (Bistrita). Add Maramures (Baia Mare) which also plaued top league football now and then. But there was no drama – one team dominated the championship.
Gloria (Bistrita) dominated and won the championship. Well, it was true to the name… glory to Gloria. They left the next pursuer, UTA (Arad), 6 points behind. 18 wins, 9 ties, 7 losses, 87-40 scoring record, and 45 points.