Article by Alin Buzărin – Published Tuesday, 07 April 2026, 18:17 / Updated Tuesday, 07 April 2026 18:20
The day after Easter we will have an answer to this question, which has been grinding the minds and hearts of the people of Olten for almost 6 years.
On Monday evening we will have U Cluj-Craiova, the absolute derby of our football at the moment. Two teams equal in points, separated in the standings by a single goal, which is in front of the Transylvanian team.
The pandemic aberration
On this occasion, you can't help but remember how the Oltenians missed the title in the 2020 pandemic. In that match with CFR, turned by the competition organizers into a real final, in the sense that if it had been equal after 90 minutes, overtime and penalties would have followed. An enormity! How do you decide something like that in a points competition?!
Then this aberration was quickly overcome, using the justification that in exceptional moments exceptional measures are needed. Correct, exceptional, but not absurd!
Know-how difference
Finally, we remember, with Cristiano Bergodi on the bench, the Oltenians played that decisive match at home, but, due to the pandemic, without spectators. It is known, they led 1-0, goal Nistor, now in the other camp, but in the end CFR prevailed 3-1 and won the championship.
It was said then that the difference was made at the level of the coaches, because if the Transylvanians had Dan Petrescu on the bench, for whom winning trophies had almost become a habit, the Italian then only had one Cup in his record, won with Rapid more than a decade ago. His trophies with Sepsi are post-August 3, 2020.
Kicked out of first place
Then, in 2020, Bergodi took over Craiova in that competitive interruption caused by the pandemic. When football resumed in June, he ticked off seven consecutive successes and ended up playing “with the title on the table”.
Cristiano Bergodi, the coach from U Cluj // photo: Imago Images
After missing it, in the following season, 2020-21, he ticked off another seven successes in a row. Two failures with modest opponents, Clinceni and Chindia, were enough to cause his separation from Olteni. The wording is elegant, in fact Bergodi was fired, even though his team was in the leader's chair at that time.
The man of serial success
Now it will remain to be seen if that moment in 2020 happened because Bergodi “didn't know how to win the championship”, or the team at that time was suffering from that meteahn.
Seven is the number of consecutive successes of the Italian on the bench of “U”. That is, the excellent route is in force, as it was then. And if we dig a little deeper into the statistics, we see that out of the last 15 games, Cluj lost two and won 13. So, success has become a habit for the seasoned Italian.
Which one!
It is said that those for whom victory is second nature, a way of being, win in fobal. But they talk about final victories, about achieved goals. Title or Cup, because Cristiano is employed there as well, he will play in the semi-finals with Argeșul, while Olten will meet Dinamo.
In fact, this season finale is a kind of Bergodi's attempt to postulate his theoretical proofs. But also the attempt of the Oltenians to shake off the veil of failure, under which lies the truth that in 12 years after promotion, they managed to win only two Cups, and those in disputes with opponents (Hermannstadt and Astra Giurgiu) who at the time of the finals were flirting with the second echelon. We'll see what happens on Monday.
