Cav's Place

I know there’s little point in posting this here and basically none to write it in English, but the start of our championship is right around the corner and I found myself thinking about this once again over the past couple of days. The competition format that I came up with now is significantly different from the one I have been toying with for the past several years, but I think it’s even better. I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t, after all. It also makes for a pretty nice format for the Cup, as I took this into account as well, despite my desire to be fair and also include a few more teams from the county championships creating a potentially complicated first stage.

Explaining the current competition format may be somewhat tricky, both because detailed official information regarding the lower divisions and the first stages of the Cup isn’t readily available and because there are changes currently taking place, but I’ll do my best, starting from the bottom.
The fourth level of the pyramid is made up of 42 separate county championships managed by the respective County Football Associations. The number of teams varies, sometimes the competition format may also vary, and certain championships, those that have enough teams for this purpose, have two divisions, therefore creating a fifth level. The 42 winners of these county championships enter a promotion play-off, with the 21 winners promoting to the third division.
The third level is called Liga 3 and currently has six series running in parallel, with teams being entered in them according to geographic criteria. Each series had 18 teams last season, though than number was reduced to 16 for this season. The six series winners promote to the second division and normally 21 teams, the bottom three from each series and the three ranked just above them with the poorest results, would relegate at the end of each season. However, 37 teams relegated last season, those being the bottom six from each series and the one that finished 12th but had the poorest results against the teams ranked above it, in order to reduce the number of teams in each series by two and also make room for the four additional teams that relegated from the second division. Then again, it must be said that one team was excluded and no less than 14 others withdrew from the third division last season, usually due to financial difficulties. This season 31 or 33 teams should relegate, those being the bottom five from each series and the one or three that finished 11th but had the poorest results, to make room for the additional teams that will once again relegate from the second division.
The second level is called Liga 2 and currently has two series running in parallel, with teams being entered in them according to geographic criteria. Each series had 18 teams last season, though than number was reduced to 16 for this season. From each series, the top two teams promote to the first division and normally the bottom three relegate. However, the bottom five relegated from each series last season, to reduce the number of teams as stated above. But it must be said that two teams were excluded and three others withdrew from the second division last season. Plans call for the two series of the second division to merge into a single one, having 20 or 22 teams, starting next season, in which case 16 or 18 teams, or the bottom eight or nine from each series, would need to relegate at the end of this season, assuming six will still promote from the third division.
The first level is called Liga 1 and has 18 teams, with the bottom four relegating. There are currently no firm plans to reduce the number of teams in the first division, though calls to take it down to 16 are rather frequent and numbers as low as 12 have been mentioned on occasion, as several teams have financial difficulties.
As for the Cup, the exact details for each round are irrelevant at this time, but the 42 County Cup winners enter in round one, third division teams enter in rounds one and two, second division teams enter in round four and first division teams enter in round six. Starting from the second round, teams that promoted at the end of the last season are considered as having finished last in the division they promoted to and those that relegated are considered as having finished first in the division they relegated to, but this rule does not apply in the first round, where teams that relegated from the third division are entered and those that promoted to it but didn’t also win their respective County Cups are not. The final is the tenth round and the semifinals are the only matches played on a home and away basis. Most first division teams will be drawn against lower division teams in the sixth round, with the four remaining, weaker, ones being drawn against each other. Any lower division team that makes it to round seven or even the quarterfinals will be placed in pot three and drawn against one of the best first division teams left in the competition, which are placed in pot one.

The problems that many teams keep having mean that the number of teams that can be supported on each level is lower than the one the current system assumes, which means that we need more levels and less teams on each. For that purpose, while I see no need to impose any other changes on the county championships, I think they need to be bumped down to levels five and six, with a regional championship being added as the new level four. I also think 12 teams are a reasonable number for each division or series on any of the first four levels, which would also allow for an interesting championship split in two parts. The first part would involve the teams playing each other normally, home and away, but for the second part they’d be split in two, as it’s done in certain other places of the world as well. The top six would fight for the title or promotion and the bottom six would fight to avoid relegation, each playing each other once again on a home and away basis, making for 32 rounds up to this point. However, to make the first part more meaningful, one more home and away match could be added in part two, played by each team against the one that had the opposing position in the respective half of the classification at the end of the first part, so the first against the sixth, the second against the fifth and the third against the fourth.
Moving on to specifics, the bottom two from the first division would relegate and the two ranked above them would enter a play-off against the teams finishing third and fourth in the second division, with the winners promoting or staying in the first division. In the second division, which would have a single series, the top two teams would promote, the next two would enter the play-off mentioned above, the bottom two would relegate and the two ranked above them would enter a play-off against the teams finishing second in each of the series of the third division, with the winners promoting or staying in the second division. In the third division, the winner of each of the two series would promote, the second placed team would enter the play-off mentioned above and the bottom four would relegate. As for the fourth division, the regional championship I mentioned, I’m going with the idea of the eight regions that kept being mentioned by our politicians not so long ago, so I say it should have eight series, with the winner of each promoting and the bottom two relegating, then comparing the results of the teams that finished fourth in the battle against relegation and having the weakest two also relegate automatically and the other six enter a play-off against each other, with the winners saving themselves and the losers relegating. 21 teams would still promote from the county championships, according to the current system.
It should be noted that this system includes a total of 144 teams on these four levels, while the current system includes 146 teams on its three levels, not counting the county championships in either case. My system would also allow teams that need to withdraw from the first part of the championship to still fight to avoid relegation, if they’d manage to solve their problems by the start of the second part.

If having county championships implies having County Cups, which makes perfect sense, then having regional championships also needs to imply having Regional Cups. And I plan to use them to correct what I believe to be the unfair first round of the current Cup format. It makes perfect sense for the teams that promoted to the regional divisions to enter the Regional Cups, but I also like the idea of having County Cup winners enter, so I add some more places and another round. That round is a play-off between the 21 teams that relegated from the regional divisions and the 21 county champions that lost the promotion play-off, with two or three of the winners being entered into the qualifying round of each Regional Cup. If a County Cup winner also won their respective championship, then the team they defeated in the County Cup final will take the lowest slot they’d be entitled to. So if a County Cup winner also promoted, the finalist will enter the Regional Cup qualifying round, while if a County Cup winner also won the championship but failed to promote, the finalist will enter this play-off.
Each Regional Cup will have the same format, starting with a qualifying round in which five or six County Cup winners (or finalists, in case the winners also promoted) and two or three winners of the play-off mentioned above will compete. This actually requires 64 teams, but there are only 42 County Cup winners and 21 winners of that play-off, so one more team needs to be added in one place, likely as a fair play award. Either way, the four winners of the qualifying round will join the 12 teams from the respective regional division, including the recently promoted ones, in round one, and the eight winners of round one will play each other in the quarterfinals. But this is where it gets interesting, as the four winners of the quarterfinals will move on to both the semifinals of the Regional Cup and round one of the Cup (or Romania’s Cup). At this point, the Regional Cup will pause, with the semifinals and the final being played towards the end of the season.
The first round of the Cup will involve the 24 third division teams and the 32 winners of the Regional Cup quarterfinals. The 12 second division teams will join the 28 winners of the first round in the second round, while the third round will have the 12 first division teams joining the 20 winners of the second round. The competition will continue normally after that, with round four, quarterfinals, semifinals and final.
I’d really want to see matches played home and away for the Cup semifinals and quarterfinals, as well as for the semifinals of the Regional Cups. I’d also see it as quite fair to have two pots for each draw up to and including round four of the Cup, meaning that half of the teams will be seeded and each of them will be drawn against one of the unseeded ones. This also means everything up to and including the Regional Cups’ quarterfinals, though not their semifinals as well. I think the draw for the Cup quarterfinals should be open, however.
Currently, a first division team needs to get past four rounds to reach the Cup final, while that number increases to six for a second division team, eight or nine for a third division team and nine for a team from a county championship. In my system, it’s still four rounds for a first division team, but only five for a second division one, six for one from the third division, eight for one from a regional division and nine or ten for teams from the county championships. So it doesn’t make it more difficult for first division teams, but it does make it more attractive for lower division teams, plus that it gives some more teams from the county championships a chance to take part. Not to mention that the Regional Cups give lesser teams something to play for and should increase the attention and possibly also the support they receive from their communities.