Dan Petrescu and CFR Cluj to Dethrone FCSB in Europe!

The victory in Sofia on Thursday night opens up important prospects for CFR in this group. And qualify in the spring, as happened last season, but also achieving another incredible performance. To become the first Romanian club to rank above the FCSB in the coefficient ranking of the European Cup.

Only 5,500 points left

At the moment, CFR is quite close to FCSB. He has an updated coefficient, which will be applied for the value boxes in next season’s European preliminaries, of 15,500. FCSB has 21,000, but cannot climb in any way until next summer because it is already out of competition.

In order for Gruia’s band to pass over the FCSB at the end of this season, they need a very good run in this group, to add other victories, which would almost certainly mean a qualification in the spring. Where he could score again, without going to the second round, as in the previous experience: in February 2020 he scored 1-1 and 0-0 with Sevilla.

With such a course, CFR would jump over FCSB. What would be a true black premiere in the history of the team sponsored by Gigi Becali. Never in the 2003-2020 period did FCSB outperform anyone else in Romania in the coefficient ranking.

Even in the first year with Becali at the helm, when the team arrived after many unfortunate European failures and had an embarrassing position on the continent, FCSB was not beaten by a League 1 team.

The top of our teams, in 2003, in the coefficient ranking of the European Cup

• FCSB – 163
• Fast – 196
• National FC – 216
• Dynamo – 216

Even if he will not manage to lose this position the number 1 position in Europe among Romanian teams, at the beginning of next season, the virtual ranking of coefficients will almost certainly have CFR over FCSB.

The 2016-2017 season will come out of the calculation, but FCSB will lose the 5,000 points accumulated then, while CFR was not even in the European cups at that time. Unless CFR doesn’t even draw until the end of the current group, it will also start behind FCSB, but it is an extremely unlikely option., given the rather useful group that now benefits the people of Cluj.

Just two years ago, there was a huge gap between the two. The CFR appeared in the summer of 2018 in the Champions League preliminaries with a coefficient of only 1,000, the low level due to the absence of the continent due to the insolvency the club went through.

Instead, the FCSB was doing well, with 27,500, with two seasons that scored a lot: in 2013-2014, the team entered the Champions League groups, and in 2017-2018 they played Europa League groups, but also qualified in the spring.

FCSB vs. CFR. Comparison last 3 years

Season	FCSB	CFR
18/19	2.5	2.5
19/20	2.5	10
20/21	two	3

* FCSB is already eliminated, can no longer score, CFR is in the game, can accumulate points

3 years and two monthsThey have passed the last successful FCSB qualification in the Europa League groups: in August 2017 they eliminated Viktoria Plzen in round 3 of the Champions League, they went on to the play-offs and began their presence in the UEL, where they arrived after losing the league prize. with Sporting Lisbon

Craiova was number 1 between the ’80 and ’88

The last team from Romania to be the first at the top of the coefficients, exclusively among the League 1 clubs, in addition to FCSB and Steaua, was the University of Craiova. Which has managed for almost a decade to be the best classified group of our country on the continent. And this dominance began in 1980, when it ranked 37th among European clubs, after which, due to the performances of the first part of the 80s, it ended up occupying positions 20-23 for 5 years in a row, between 1984 and 1988 In 1989, Steaua moved up to 14th place, after playing the second CCE final, while the University of Craiova fell to 37th place, and Dinamo was 52nd!

Fantastic 15 months for CFR

Since July 2019 and until now, CFR has scored no less than 21 matches in European cups. During the same period, FCSB played only 14 matches. The Cluj people always made it to the group stage, the red-blues never. The figures of the 25 games played by CFR:

• 10 games in the Champions League
• 10 games in the Europa League
• 11 wins
• 5 draw
• 5 defeats (Astana, Celtic, Slavia twice and Lazio)

0-1is the marker of the last defeat suffered by the CFR in Europe, in November 2019, with Lazio, away

8 matchesCFR has consecutive consecutive European Cups without losing: 2-0 with Celtic, 1-1 and 0-0 with Sevilla, 2-0 with Floriana, 2-2 with Dinamo Zagreb, 1-0 with Djurgården, 3-1 with KuPS Kuopio and 2-0 with CSKA Sofia

The European MRI of the two teams in the last two seasons

Who removed CFR

• Astana
• Maccabi Tel Aviv
• Celtic
• Lazio
• Rennes
• Floriana
• Djurgården
• KuPS Kuopio

Who eliminated CFR?

• Slavia Prague
• Seville
• Dinamo Zagreb

Who eliminated FCSB

• Milsami Orhei
• Alaşkert
• Mlada Boleslav
• Sirak
• Backa Topola

Who eliminated FCSB?

Sixty-fiveIt is the place where the FCSB is today at the top of the European coefficients, equal to Qarabag and at the limit on teams like Feyenoord, Alkmaar, AEK Athens, Rennes, Rangers, PAOK, which were not eliminated

29was the place that FCSB occupied in the ranking of European coefficients in 2008, year in which CFR did not even appear in this hierarchy

6It was the place that Steaua occupied in 1990, among all European clubs, being the first 5 classified then Bayern Munich, Juventus, Real Madrid, Benfica and Anderlecht

FCSB also lost the role of flag bearer for Romania

Until 5 years ago, when it began to fail in the European cups, the FCSB was the club that contributed the most score to the country coefficient each year. From the 2009-2010 season to the summer of 2015, the red-blues were always in the first place in the hierarchy of contribution to the Romanian coefficient.

Season	The # 1 contribution to coefficient
15/16	Astra
16/17	Astra
17/18	FCSB
18/19	FCSB
19/20	CFR
19/20	CFR

CFR, more than 22 million euros! FCSB, only 1.5 million

And financially, the differences are huge, taking into account only the income from the European participation in the last two seasons. The CFR dealt a hard blow last year: it raised almost 15 million euros, especially since it acceded to the UEL groups that play in the League play-off, which rewards the teams that lose with 5 million euros . Now, it has already started more than 4 million euros, to which will be added the market pool share, which can even reach 3 million. Instead, FCSB was chosen with just 1.5 million euros from the two stakes.

Starting in the summer of 2021 we reached the Conference League

Starting from the next European Cup season, there will be a major change. Romania will also have 4 teams in the European Cups, but not even one at the start of the Europa League preliminaries. The champion will also go to the Champions League, but the Cup winner and second and third place will start in the Europa Conference League, a newly established competition by the Nyon forum. In the Europa League preliminaries, only teams from countries that are in the first 15 places in the ranking of European coefficients will have access. And Romania is only 25th now! Instead, the champion of League 1, no matter who she is, if she passes the first preliminary round of the Champions League, she will have a safety net: if she is eliminated, she will go to the Europa League!

All about volunteers – CFR Cluj

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