Romania will be represented by 9 teams in the EMF Champions League 2017, which will take place in Slovenia, Terme Catez between the 7th and 10th of September. In last year’s edition of Champions League three Romanian teams reached the semifinal stage and finished in second, third and fourth place respectively. This year the Romanian Minifootball Federation is aiming to take the Gold home as well.
Romania is currently the most decorated team in the history of European minifootball having won 6 European Championships (2010-2015). The Romanian National Championship, which took place in Bacau between the 12th and 15th July this year, gathered the best 20 teams of the country and is one of the biggest and strongest national championships in Europe.
One of the teams representing Romania will be current national champions, Ary & Roby Buftea. Ary & Roby Buftea proved themselves being the strongest Romanian team by defeating Old Boys Bucharest 1:0 in the final, as a revenge for a loss against them in the semi-final of the South-East Regional Championship. Old Boys Bucharest will also participate in the Champions League this September again.
CS Luceafarul Cluj has also obtain the license to compete for the Champions League gold after winning the second most important minifootball competition in Romanian, the Romanian Cup. It was organized this year in the beautiful city of Cluj Napoca between 7-9 July. A record number of teams, 84, participated and the games were played simultaneously on 7 artificial pitches. After 152 matches played within 3 days, the first place and gold medals went to the local team, granting CS Luceafarul Cluj a place in the EMF Champions League.
Three out of the four winners of the Regional Championships will also participate in the competition, respectively the champions of the South-East Region (Old Boys Bucharest), North-East (Sanorom Bolotesti – Vrancea) and South-West (MAV Glissando Timisoara). MAV Glissando Timisoara won’t have to be introduced to the minifootball fans as they finished third in last year’s Champions League.
The Romanian Federation has decided to approve the request to represent the country this September of three other teams: Juventus Sibiu (third place in the National Championship in Bacau and finalists of last year’s EMF Champions League), FC Boromir Ramnicu Valcea (finalists of the Romanian Cup) and Golden Boys Bacau (quarter finalists of the National Championship).
The ninth team from Romania will be Imperium EBS Iasi, the team who got lucky at last year’s ruffle (draw) held by the EMF and therefore was granted participation at this year’s event by the organizers.