Victoria Bucureşti
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Former Romanian football club, dissolved right after the 1989 Romanian Revolution.
History
The club was sponsored by the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs (the "Militia", Police). In 1985 Victoria played for the first time in Romanian top division, becoming very fast one of the most important teams, behind Steaua and Dinamo Bucuresti. Between 1986-1989 they finished every year on 3rd place. However, it was a well known fact during that time that many victories were due to unfair influences over the refferees, other teams' players and even officials. This is why in 1990, right after the Revolution, the team was dissolved by the Romanian Football Federation and the club litterally dissapeared.
Players
Victoria was known as a team that enrolls only good players, however not good enough to be enrolled by Steaua or Dinamo. They were either players in their retirement age (such as Ionel Augustin, Costel Orac, Cornel Talnar or Claudiu Vaiscovici) or talents not good enough for the "big 2" (such as Marcel Coras, Ovidiu Hanganu, Fanel Tara, Pana brothers or Culcear). Many players came from Dinamo (in fact, Victoria's stadium was a training field inside Dinamo's Sport Complex).
European Cups
Even so, during its short existence, the club played one quarter final of UEFA Cup 1988-89. They were defeated by Dynamo Dresden (1-1 in Bucharest and 0-4 in Dresden), a team from former GDR were a certain Matthias Sammer was a young rising star.
[edit] Trivia
- The last president of the Club was Dumitru Dragomir, currently the president of the Romanian Football League and Romanian politician.
- Between 1985-1989, Victoria played 4 Romanian Cup semi-finals. They lost everytime against fellows Dinamo with 2 goals (2-4 in 1986, 1987, 1988 and 0-2 in 1989). Subsequently, Dinamo always played the final against Steaua, losing it in 3 occasions (1987, 1988 and 1989).
- Although ranked many years as 3rd Romanian team, Victoria never took a single point from Steaua or Dinamo.
