Sports Weekend

A roundup of the weekend's main sporting events

Florin Orban, 24.04.2026, 13:45

Sports lovers in Romania have these days pinned their hopes on the two sides which are representing Romania in the quarter finals of the Champions League in women’s handball. Both sides will be playing on Sunday; the first, CSM Bucharest, will be up against Danish side Esbjerg in a return match in Bucharest. CSM lost the first game 25-26. In France, another Romanian side, Gloria Bistrita, will be playing Brest Bretagne. The French side won the first game in Romania, 36-35. However, the first two Romanian sides still stand good chances of qualifying for the competition’s next stage, Final Four, a tournament due in Budapest in early June.

Since 2018 no Romanian handball side has passed the quarterfinals of the Champions League. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, CSM Bucharest made it to the Final Four. In 2016 they won the league and in the other two editions came third.

This weekend will be seeing the matches of Romania’s Football Superleague counting towards the sixth leg of the final stage. In the play-out section, where ten football sides are struggling to avoid demotion, two matches are due on Friday; Hermannstadt will be playing Csikszereda while FCSB takes on Petrolul Ploiești. On Saturday, FC Botoșani, on their own turf, will be up against Oțelul Galați. On Sunday, in Arad, western Romania, local side UTA plays Farul Constanța. The last match on Monday will be pitching Metaloglobus against Unirea Slobozia. Metaloglobus ranks last nine points behind the rest and if they lose the game, they will demote to the second league. Unirea Slobozia and Hermannstadt share the same number of points and are also struggling to avoid demotion. Farul has the same number of points with Petrolul though the latter has a better goal average. FCSB and UTA are the best sides in the play-out section and the best sides will be playing a tie match for a place in the preliminaries of the Conference League.

In the play-off section, on Saturday CFR and Universitatea Cluj will be playing in a genuine derby. On Sunday, Dinamo Bucharest and Rapid Bucharest will be playing on the National Arena in Bucharest. The leg’s last game will be pitching Fc Arges against Universitatea Craiova in Mioveni, southern Romania. Universitatea Cluj and  Universitatea Craiova are topping the table with the same number of points.

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