RRI Sport Club – The Romanian Football Cup
The 2025–2026 edition of the Romanian Football Cup has reached its final stage, so today we’re taking a look back at the competition’s history and the changes that have taken place in recent years in how it has been organised
Florin Orban, 13.05.2026, 13:45
The Romanian Football Cup has been held since 1933. The first team to win the trophy was Ripensia Timișoara, which defeated Universitatea Cluj 5–0 in the final of the 1933–1934 season. The match was held at the ONEF Stadium in Bucharest, an arena that, after 1948, was renamed the Republic Stadium and was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the People’s House, now the Palace of Parliament.
FCSB, formerly known as Steaua, has won the most editions of the Romanian Cup, namely 24. The Bucharest team has also played in 8 other finals, all of which it lost. Two other teams from the capital, Dinamo and Rapid, have each won the Cup 13 times. Teams from the lower tiers of Romanian football have often been among the winners. For example, in the edition of the competition two years ago, the trophy went to a Second Division team, Corvinul Hunedoara, which defeated the Super League side Otelul Galați in the final. This has shown that the tournament remains a competition full of surprises, despite the fact that the organizational system has been changed and a team now needs more good results against strong teams than before to win the Cup.
The group stage format was introduced in the Romanian Cup starting with the 2022 edition of the competition. Until then, it had been a single-elimination tournament throughout all its stages. Now, the competition begins with the county-level stages, in which all clubs and sports associations registered with the Romanian Football Federation and county football associations can participate, regardless of the divisions they belong to. This is followed by the regional stage, which features the 42 winning teams from the county level, from which 7 teams advance. These teams advance to the first round, alongside the 69 teams that competed in League III last year. As the competition progresses, up to and including the group stage, teams from the higher leagues also join the competition. Each of the four groups consists of six teams.
This year, six of the 24 teams in the Romanian Cup group stage came from the second division, and two from the third division. Only two second-division teams made it to the quarterfinals—Metalul Buzău and Gloria Bistrița—but they did not advance any further. The top two teams from the Superliga reached the final: Universitatea Craiova and Universitatea Cluj. (MI)
