fran23 - Comments

Great guide, I was looking for a new challenge game after finishing my own revival game with my favourite team. Let me chip in and add a few Romanian fallen giants that would make a good revival game, if anyone is interested. With the Romanian First League inhabited by the likes of ACS Poli, Astra Giurgiu, Botosani, Chiajna (a village with a population of 4500), Corona Brasov, Sageata Navodari, Vaslui or Viitorul Constanta, all of them founded after the year 2000 (some as late as 2012), the Romanian lower leagues are riddled with more traditional clubs. I'll stick to the Romanian Second League because it's the lowest playable one.



My favourite club. Founded in 1923, one of the few Romanian pre-war clubs still active, Rapid is one of the greatest clubs in Romanian football and with a great history and support it has all the ingredients to stay that way, but recent money troubles got the club relegated at the end of the 2012-2013, despite finishing eight in the league. Despite not winning any league title in the pre-war period, Rapid was one of the best Romanian teams around in this early era of Romanian football, winning 7 domestic cups, 6 of which were won back to back, setting a record which still stands.

In 1940 Rapid reached the final of the Mitropa Cup, a continental competition usualy disputed between clubs from Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania but in the 1940 edition, because of World War II, only clubs from Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia participated. Nonetheless, after knocking out MTK Budapest and Gradanski Zagreb, Rapid was to play Ferencvarosi Budapest in July 1940, but the match was never held because of the events of World War II.

In the communist era the club had it's ups and downs. After an unremarkable decade in the fifties in which the club was relagated twice (spiced up by missing the title on goal difference in 1950), Rapid had one of it's best decades in the sixties. Besides finishing three times second and two times coming in third, Rapid won it's first National title in 1967. The seventies started good with two runner up finishes in 1970 and 1971. In 1972 they won the cup and qualified for the 1972-1973 Cup Winners Cup in which Rapid knocked out Landskrona from Sweden and it's namesake Rapid Wien, but were eliminated in the quarter finals by Don Revie's Leeds United. Because the seventies started so well no one foresaw the disaster to follow. In 1974 Rapid relagated and would not recover until the fall of communism, becoming a yo-yo club, even though they won the Cup in 1975 as a Second League side. Despite this hardship the club retained it's great support and in the eighties, despite playing in the Second League in a time in which other Romanian clubs were winning the European Champions Cup (Steaua in 1986), Rapid was one of the most beloved clubs in Romania.

After the fall of communism, with the infusion of private money from new owner George Copos, Rapid became once again a force in Romanian football and between 1996 and 2008 they finished in the top three 10 times, two of which being first. Rapid also won 4 cup in this timeframe (1996-2008) and reached again the quarter finals of a continental competition in the 2005-2006 Uefa Cup, knocking out the likes of Feyenoord, Hertha Berlin or Hamburg SV but being thrown out after two draws (1-1, 0-0) against Romanian rivals Steaua Bucuresti.

The problems started in 2008 after a new owner, Jordanian Fathi Taher, made huge, albeit bad investments. Failing to gain any successes Taher left the club the same year, former owner George Copos returning at the head of Rapid, despite having no intention of making any further investments. The club soon acquired huge debts, the new owner limiting to only keeping the club alive with minimal efforts. After a period of mediocrity, in which Rapid finished between fourth and eight, the club hit it's bottom in December 2012 when it entered insolvency. After many of the so-called star players left the club, several young players were brought in from the youth team to play in the second part of the season. At the end Rapid finished eight, the young players surprising many with some good performances, but despite this the club, failing to obtain the First League license for the next season, was relegated.

You'll start the 2013-2014 season as favourites for promotion (media prediction is first) in the first group of the Second League. You have a good team for the Second league and a couple of great youngsters, a left-back and a central midfielder (touted as future stars). Promotion is easy to gain but for the First League the squad must be strenghtened. You can sell your young stars for very good prices (around 5 million euros each) so your financial problems will be over and you'll also have the money to rebuild the squad. With hard work and a bit of luck you should be able to bring Rapid back to where it belongs.

A side quest for this challenge would be to emulate the 1975 squad and win the Cup as a second league team.

Wow, this was longer than I planned to. Sorry for the wall of text. I'll post another reply for the other revival challenges in Romania.