Romanian Ultras movement

For the first time in its history Romania has 7 teams in European Cup. What seemed to be a joke a couple of years ago became reality. This is mainly due to Rapid and Steaua reaching 3 years ago the the higher phases of UEFA Cup and to some constant results of Steaua. Also, Vaslui victory in Intertoto helped , so we had 2 teams in Champions league and 5 in UEFA Cup.

The start was of CFR Cluj, a team which came a long way since 6 years ago, when it played in third division. With massive investment in it by a Hungarian ethnic named Arpad Paskany and with the majority of players being foreigners, this team managed to win the championship and the cup last year. The ultras scene at this team isn’t that good, as the first team of Cluj with tradition is their arch - rival, U Cluj. The away trip to Rome was good enough or them, 300 persons from which some Romanian workers in Italy, all the important groups being present :
Here is the opinion of Lorenzo, ASRomaultras webmaster about them, in Italian:
Tifo Cluj:
Colorati i 350 tifosi rumeni, che incitano la squadra all’antica, con tanta voce e battimani. Si fanno sentire, complice la buona prestazione della loro squadra. Il tifo è un po’ datato, specialmente per i cori ma, in ogni caso, è stato assai più che sufficiente per farsi sentire nell’Olimpico semivuoto:
Voto: 6,5

The next day came the game of Steaua against the Germans from Bayern Munchen. The North terrace of Steaua had a coreo that with a sun made of papers and a canvas which had on it the attack of a Turkish army (Steaua played with Galatasaray in the last round), with the message THE SIXTH HORIZON IN THE EUROPEAN ELITE (Steaua played until now 6 times in Champions League).


Also worth mentioning is decent support from Bayern fans, however, one must say that they came in much bigger number last year when they played the other Steaua (in translation Star) from Belgrade, the Red Star (I was at that game and they were about 1 000 Germans). Read the rest of this entry »

Desant and Triada (groups from the North terrace of Steaua) banneres were stolen thursday morning, as Steaua fans returned from Vaslui. The guys who had the flags were attacked by Dinamo ultras when they were going home. One of them seems to be in the hospital. Here are the photos:
Read the rest of this entry »

The first round of Romanian league started on 26-27 July. From the ultras point of view, we didn’t have any interesting games…

Fc Arges Pitesti - Politehnica Timisoara was te first game of comeback for Pitesti ultras in the first league. They made a small choreo with an ultras and a player, with the message: “Ready to fight”

Timisoara fans that came to the game showed only one banner: Politehnica Timisoara. They will only show this banner from now on, and not the banners of their groups, because of the situation that they are in (identity confusion for the club, the International Sport’s Court from Laussane forbidden them to use the name “Politehnica” so from now on, until the situation is changed, theu will play under the name FC Timisoara).

Rapid Bucuresti - Gloria Bistrita - nothing out of the ordinary, Bistrita has few supporters, photos with Rapid here

Gloria Buzau - Farul Constanta - after quite a long time for Farul in a mediocre support, they managed to get about 100 people to Buzau. One group made even a small choreo, the photos can be seen here. Buzau supporters are few, the club doesn’t have a tradition of support, the majority of the fans still like the 3 big teams in Bucarest (Steaua, Dinamo and Rapid, but especially Steaua). Read the rest of this entry »

FC Vaslui, the local team from Vaslui (town in Moldavia) qualified from Intertoto Cup to Uefa after the 2 matches against Neftchi Bak (Azerbaidjan). The team from Baku previously eliminated teams from Slovakia ( FC Nitra) and Belgium (Germinal Beerchot).

At the home game, Vaslui ultras from the North terrace (main groups are curently Dorobantii and Excentric) made a choreo composed of 8 canvases. On each canvas there was a letter made in the language of deaf people: FC VASLUI. The message was: “Even we would remain without our voices, you would still feel us in the stands”:

The choreo was initialy prepared in a more complicated way, unfortunately for Vaslui ultras, very few spectators came, bacuse of the heavy rain that flooded Moldavia these days and because of the exagerated price tickets the club put for this game (10 euros for the North/South terraces, considering that vaslui is one of the poorest cities in Romania).

Petrolul Ploiesti Read the rest of this entry »

How can you explain something like this? I think and I wonder… It is hard to find your words. How can you make someone who hasn’t a clue to understand something that for you is so important. Because this article is dedicated to those who don’t have a clue. To those quiet spectators, to those journalists, to those parents, to those girlfriends, to the majority. To those people who don’t understand us.
I will try to make a short history of this tifo item. AS it would be expected, the first scarves appeared in England. Made of thick wool, under the form of simple big stripes, with the colors of the team.Then, with the birth of organized supporters in Italy, scarves and the way they were used (stretched above the head) were also present in Italy.

Read the rest of this entry »

I often thought about this article. Many times it began different. Today it begins like this:”The prisoners of one belief”(Prigionieri di una fede - SS Lazio). We all realize what the Lazio supporters wanted to say: total devotion for the colors of the club you love.

But now I think about us all. The supporters! Of course, I can never strip my ultra clothes. I will always see the world, not only the sport, by the eyes of the one who sees a football match from the worst place of the stadium. By the eyes of the one who doesn’t need any comfort in following his team for thousands of miles. So, I am an ultras. I don’t have anything to apologize to the other supporters but today I will be their voice also.

This is the tough true, we are prisoners. The football is transforming, little by little in something else. And we can’t do anything about it. Invisible bars of a jail from the future are holding us in the place we like to be. Or we should I talk in the past tense? We liked to be?

When football was invented, and many years afterwards, other sports were in fashion. Tennis, rugby, cricket, box and later on, cyclism, were on the first pages of the newspapers. The players and especially the spectators at football were often looked as the bad side of society.. The workers, the urchins, the fools, people from bad neighborhoods etc.

As a sport, I have to admit football isn’t a big deal. Too many people are following a ball, too little ending of this commune effort. It also takes about 2 hours… And then, what’s its magic??? How was it possible to become the “king of sports” ??? The answer is simple but also painful. THE SPECTATORS. The people. Why painful? Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an interview we took from 2 of our German friends who recently visted Romania to make an idea about the situation here(it was at the end of 2003). We took the liberty to ask them also something about the scene in Germany. I hope that you too can get an idea from this interview, and, who knows, maybe you decide to come to visit one day… If you decide to come to Romania let us know. You are our guests!

1-What was your reasons for coming to Romania?
We wanted to get an impression on a new country and the situation there. It
was not just for the football thing, we’d also came for learning something
about the conditions the people are living in. For us as part (since
reunification) of a western-european country it was quite interesting of
getting a little bit in touch with the way of romanian everyday-life. Over
here it was seen (by our friends, families etc.) as a big adventure,
sometimes also risk, to travel to Romania, because nearly no-one usually
goes there for holidays or other reasons (so nobody knows much about Romania
going behind the level that the capital is Bucuresti), so this was kind of
strange to them. Also it was something to prove our ability to do such a
travel all by ourself’s (planning, financiating …), so it also was a test
for ourself to say “oh yes, we can do that, no big deal!”.

Read the rest of this entry »