Stories from the world of Romanian sports – The road to Montevideo (I)
Romania participated in the World Football Cup in Uruguay in 1930.
Florin Orban, 09.09.2026, 13:45
Between July 13 and 30, 1930, the first edition of the World Football Cup took place in Uruguay. Romania was among the 13 teams that took part in the competition. On April 10, 1930, the official confirmation of the Romanian team’s entry into the competition arrived in Bucharest by telegraph. Also participating from Europe were France, Belgium and Yugoslavia. America was represented by Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Mexico and the United States.
On June 16, 1930, at the North Station in Bucharest, the Romanian delegation, made up of 15 players and five officials, boarded the train to Genoa, where they were to board the transatlantic liner Conte Verde. The group of players consisted of goalkeepers Jean Lăpuşneanu and Samuel Zauber; defenders Adalbert Steiner, Rudolf Bürger, Iosif Czako; midfielders Alfred Eisenbeisser, Ladislau Rafinschi, Emerich Vogl and Corneliu Robe, plus strikers Adalbert Deşu, Nicolae Covaci, Constantin Stanciu, Ştefan Barbu, Ilie Subășeanu and Rudolf Wetzer.
From Bucharest to Italy, the Romanian delegation traveled in three second-class compartments. Alfred Eisenbeisser, better known as Fredi Fieraru, talked to the journalist Ioan Chirilă about the first contact with Italian soil, and he recorded the story in the book <<The Final is Played Today>>: (we quote) “We had just crossed the Yugoslav border and were traveling on Italian soil. After some time, the train stopped in a station, a hundred or so meters before the platform. Then I read on the station building OLIO SASSO. I immediately opened the door of the first compartment and shouted: Brothers, the first Italian station, Olio Sasso! What followed, you don’t want to know. Olio Sasso was not the name of the station, but an advertisement for Italian oil”. End of quote
In Genoa, on June 19, Romanians boarded the Conte Verde, a 36 thousand ton transatlantic liner, bound for Montevideo.
