Romania’s football champion, Universitatea Craiova, is one step away from securing a place in the main stage of a European competition. The team will face Finland\u2019s Kups Kuopio, in Europa League\u2019s third preliminary round. \u00a0Advancing to the play-offs ensures them at least a place in the Conference League. However, their immediate focus is Thursday’s match against the Finnish champions.<\/p>\n
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KuPS Kuopio reached this stage after defeating Vardar Skopje, from North Macedonia, in their opening Champions League qualifier, before loosing to Azerbaijan\u2019s Sabah FK, in the second round. Meanwhile, in the first round of the Champions League, Craiova defeated Vitebsk of Belarus, but they were later overcome by Levski Sofia of Bulgaria. Throughout these fixtures, Craiova showed significant determination, \u00a0courage and attacking cohesion, balanced however by noticeable defensive vulnerabilities. In the Romanian championship, they sit third, following a 4-0 opening victory against UTA Arad, a 1-5 away defeat to Dinamo Bucharest, and a subsequent 4-0 home win over Petrolul Ploie\u0219ti.<\/p>\n
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KuPS Kuopio enters the tie in good shape, putting up a good performance in the current edition of the Finnish first league championship, which is in full swing. Leading the standings with four rounds left before the end of the regular season, they hold a five point advantage over second-placed Inter Turku. The first leg kicks off on Thursday at 18:00, Romanian time, at the Kuopio stadium, a 5,000-seat arena featuring \u00a0artificial turf.<\/p>\n
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Romania’s other representative, CFR Cluj, will play the first leg of their Conference League third preliminary round on Thursday. They host Norway\u2019s Troms\u00f8, at the “Dr. Constantin R\u0103dulescu” stadium in Cluj-Napoca, with kick-off scheduled for 19:30. The Transylvanian team advanced by eliminating Armenia\u2019s Alashkert, following a 1-1 away draw and a decisive 3-0 home victory. The Norwegian side initially played in the \u00a0Europa League seond preliminary round, but got eliminated after sustaining 3-1 away and 1-0 home defeats against \u00a0Hradec Kr\u00e1lov\u00e9 of the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
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Troms\u00f8 currently holds third place in the ongoing Norwegian first league. In Romania, CFR Cluj occupies 12th place, following the first three rounds of the Super League season, suffering two away defeats, 1-2 against O\u021belul Gala\u021bi and 1-3 against Rapid Bucharest, alongside a 5-0 home win over FC Voluntari.(DV)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania’s football champion, Universitatea Craiova, is one step away from securing a place in the main stage of a European competition. The team will face Finland\u2019s Kups Kuopio, in Europa League\u2019s third preliminary round. \u00a0Advancing to the play-offs ensures them at least a place in the Conference League. However, their immediate focus is Thursday’s match […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":1016672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[152961,29134,38539],"coauthors":[113302,116693],"class_list":["post-1045608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-europa-league-2","tag-football","tag-romanian-football"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n