#27 Universitatea Craiova (Away, 2009/2010?)

10:59 cfr cluj , craiova shirt , football shirt collection , ion timofte , jeremie n'jock , rare football shirt , romania football , romania shirt , universitatea craiova , universitatea craiova shirt 5 Comments

A few months ago, during my recent trip to London, my mate joked about my shirt collection. While I was looking for some rare shirts in England, he said "that one sucks, it'd be cooler if it was from some romanian club! And playing in the 2nd Division!". Et voilá, here it is, a shirt from a romanian club playing in the 2nd Division. Actually, Craiova isn't playing any football this season because of a huge mess between the club and coach Vladimir Piturca.

I tried to read more and understand what really happened, but failed my goal. As far as I understood, there's a debt dispute between Craiova and Piturca, and the Romanian Football Federation decided to suspend Universitatea from every football activity this season. I'm not sure if that means they'll have to start from zero, but that's probably the case. The latest news, from December, tell me a Romanian Court ruled in favour of Craiova, and that means now they're asking for a €250 Million compensation.

Crazy times in Romania. Remember Unirea Urziceni, champions in 2009? Their owner decided to dissolve the team last summer. Poli Timisoara were relegated after finishing 2nd. And some clubs, such as Dinamo Bucharest and Vaslui, were recently investigated because of a bribery scandal. Crazy times indeed.

Romania recently turned into some kind of oasis for mid-talented portuguese players and coaches. As of today, there are two portuguese managers and dozens of players. Cadu, a former Boavista defender, is now the captain of CFR Cluj, where he plays along other 3 portuguese mates, including Beto, former Porto and Portugal's current goalkeeper.

Here's Cadu.

I'm not really into romanian football, even though my all-time favourite player is Romanian. Ion Timofte, of course, the Boavista legend, the best player ever playing for us. He's now back in Timisoara, his home town, where he owns a Hotel named after my club. Cheers, Timo!


Look at that, he rocks!


I was pretty happy with the shirt: it was cheap (around 20€ or less), and it's a nice addition to my collection. It looks great and it's from a club that isn't playing football now! Want anything more rare than that?


I specially like the badge, and they also embroided a romanian flag with 4 stars in it, I suppose it represents the 4 league titles they won in the past. Yep, Univ Craiova used to be quite successfull: they actually were UEFA Cup semi-finalists in the 80's, during the golden-era of romanian football (Steaua won the Champions League back then).

Nice badge, a lion with a sword playing football: epic.

I bought the away jersey, but the home shirt is pretty much the same, except it has a big white stripe and blue sleeves, insted of a blue stripe and white sleeves. Clever work. I bet they were using their black 3rd shirt all the time.



Let's see how it goes for the Craiova boys, hope to hear from them soon. I first heard of them back in 2005 or something, when striker Jeremie N'Jock was linked with a move to Boavista. He was scoring a fair amount of goals in Craiova, but the transfer never happened. He actually ended up playing in Portugal anyway a few years later, when he joined 2nd League outfit Estoril. Now he's scoring some goals in Moreirense.

1.96m. The cameroonian Jan Koller.

By the way, I might have a Cambodia shirt for sale, message me if you're interested.