The league is not one Europe's mainstream leagues but it certainly is crazy in its own way. For one thing the league this season has six relegation places and more than half the clubs in the league can't compete in European competition due to financial issues. It all makes for a crazy league.
To add more craziness to the league, this season has seen an incredible 39 coaching changes since the season began back in July. Seventeen of the current eighteen clubs have changed coaches since the season started, the exception? step forward FC Botosani who have stuck by their coach Leontin Grozavu, and their reward has been Europa league qualification for the first time in their history.
At Steaua Bucuresti, the country leading club in terms of league titles won were involved in an unbelievable news story earlier in the season. The club was involved in a dispute with the army over the team name (Steaua historically have been known as the army club) and there was a threat of the club losing the name, colors and logo. Indeed since that news broke out the club have indeed changed their logo but it still was an extraordinary dispute that a team could lose its name and colors, let alone one of the countries most successful clubs.
Staying with Steaua, their owner is a controversial character by the name of George Becali, also known as Gigi Becali.
Becali is also a politician but in this blog I'll stick just to the football. His ownership of Steaua has seen him go through 21 different managers since 2003. In his time as owner of Steaua he has seen the club roll back the years with the incredible 2005-06 UEFA cup semi-final run to the 2008-09 season where they snuck into the Europa league qualifiers on head-to-head over Universitatea Craiova.
On the pitch, the league this season the title race reaches its climax this coming weekend with usual suspects Steaua in the running against ASA Targu Mures who have never won the league before in fact their best ever finish prior to this season was 9th in 2010-11. Steaua are two points clear and play CSMS Iasi while ASA Targu Mures are at home to relegated Otelul Galati. Defeat for Steaua coupled with victory for Targu Mures will see the underdogs win the title and no doubt see Steaua say goodbye to another coach.
The top scorer in the league? well that would be Grégory Tadé, yes that Tadé who was with the likes of Raith Rovers and Inverness CT as well as St Johnstone up until about two years ago.
On the top scorers list is Claudiu Keseru who is joint 4th on the list with a decent 12 goals, now you might say why is he being mentioned? well first of all he is no longer with Steaua and secondly half of those twelve goals were scored in one game. Yes one game he scored half his tally. That game was a 6-0 win for Steaua against Pandurii.
What is incredible as well is that you would think he is the only player to score six in one game ever in Romania but it has been done before, way back in 1993. Mr. Keseru is also the holder of the fastest hat-trick in the Europa league. It took him just 12 minutes and that was only a few weeks after his double hat-trick against Pandurri. Mind boggling stuff this Romania.
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