RRI Sport Club – Football

Three Romanian football teams will play the first leg of the Europa League and Conference League play-offs on Thursday.

Florin Orban, 20.08.2025, 13:45

The Romanian football teams FCSB, CFR Cluj and Universitatea Craiova are one step away from the Europa League and Conference League group stages. They still have two legs of the play-off phase ahead, which are expected to be difficult. In the Europa League, FCSB will play against the Scottish team Aberdeen and will play their first match away, in an arena built at the end of the 19^th century. Pittodrie Stadium, with a capacity of almost 21,000 seats, is the fourth largest in the Scottish football league and is located close to the North Sea coast. Before the match with Aberdeen, the Romanian champion ended in a draw the Bucharest derby with Rapid on Sunday – 2-2, after leading 2-0. After six rounds, FCSB takes 12^th place in the Romanian Super League standings, with 5 points.

In the play-off for entry into the Conference League, CFR Cluj will also play the first leg of the match with the Swedish team Häcken away from home. In the Swedish championship, the Gothenburg team has a negative record after 20 rounds, with 6 wins, 5 draws and 9 defeats, ranking 10^th among 16 teams. In the Romanian Superliga, CFR fares even worse. It has five points, like FCSB, but is in 13^th position, also among 16 teams. On Sunday, in the Romanian championship, CFR Cluj played at home, with FC Botoşani, and finished in a draw, 3 all. The high number of goals conceded by CFR is worrying – 10 in the five games played in the Superliga. FCSB also conceded 10, but played six games.

Universitatea Craiova, the third Romanian team in the European Cups, is in the best position in the domestic championship. They lead the Super League, having four points more than their main contenders, Rapid and UTA, and have not lost a single match so far in the current edition of the Romanian competition. Universitatea Craiova will play in the Conference League play-offs with the Turkish team Istanbul Başakşehir, a team that finished in 5^th place last edition of the first echelon in Turkey, surpassed only by the better-known Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Samsunspor and Beşiktaş. The first leg takes place in Istanbul, in the Başakşehir district of the large urban agglomeration, in a stadium with 17 thousand seats. (LS)