Sports weekend

The latest from domestic football

Florin Orban, 15.04.2022, 13:45

The first part of Romanian League One domestic championship’s Group 1 stage draws to a close this coming weekend, with matches counting towards the 5th round.

On Saturday, 4th-placed team FC Voluntari play a home game against 6th-placed team FC Arges. Also on Saturday, in Ovidiu, in the south-east, 5th-placed team Farul Constanţa go against 3rd-placed squad Universitatea Craiova. The latter team has had a most strenuous job in the last two rounds, grabbing hard-fought wins against the leader, CFR Cluj this past Sunday, and FCSB two weeks ago.

The 5th round’s toughest confrontation is the match pitting holders CFR Cluj against runner-up team FCSB. At the moment CFR Cluj are 5 points clear of FCSB. A win would secure an 8-point advantage for CFR; it would thus be hard for the other teams to come from behind and amass a similar number of points, since they are five rounds away from the end of the championship’s Group 1. CFR Cluj trail a recent 2-3 away defeat by Universitatea Craiova this past Sunday. On the National Arena in Bucharest, on Monday, FCSB trounced FC Voluntari, 4-nil, apparently a real morale-booster ahead of FCSB’s away fixture against CFR Cluj. However, head-to-heads has revealed that in CFR’s last ten fixtures against FCSB, only one win has been reported for the latter team. CFR won six fixtures, while three other matches ended in a draw. CFR’s most recent confrontation against FCSB on January 23rd also ended in a draw, 3-all..

Group 2 fixtures are also scheduled at the weekend. On Friday, Chindia Târgovişte play FC Botoşani, while CS Mioveni face Dinamo Bucharest. On Saturday in Sfântu Gheorghe, the local team Sepsi go against UTA Arad. On Sunday, FC U Craiova play a home game against Academica. In the fifth round’s last fixture on Monday, Rapid Bucharest are pitted against Gaz Metan Mediaş. With 32 points, Rapid Bucharest are at the top of the table, while Sepsi are the runner-up team, with 30. With a minus of 15 points, Gaz Metan Medias are at the bottom of the table and stand little, if any, chances to avoid direct relegation. So is Academica Clinceni, with 1 point on their record sheet. As of late, both teams have been repeatedly downgraded, because of unpaid debts. Three teams are trying hard to avoid being placed in the two positions that take them to the playoffs. They are Dinamo with 13 points, CS Mioveni and Chindia Târgovişte, with 22 points each.

(EN)