Romania 1909

In October 1909 Romania's first governing body for Association football, Asociaţiunea Societăţilor Atletice din România was founded. 
The founding members were:

Olympia București-  Bucharest's oldest club, founded in 1904 by a mixture of migrants and locals.

Colentina  București-  founded in 1909, representing the workers  of the Colentina Cotton Factory, most of whom were from the United Kingdom.

United Ploiesti- founded by Dutch and American employees in the Petroleum refineries at Ploiești, 56 km from Bucharest, United did not field a Romanian player until 1911.

In December 1909 these 3 clubs contested the Cupa Asociatiunii Romane de foot-ball.

Olympia

Olympia won the tournament 

06.12.09	Olympia Bucuresti	2	1	Colentina Bucuresti
11.12.09*	Olympia Bucuresti	3	3	United AC Ploiesti
25.12.09	Colentina Bucuresti	2	0	United AC Ploiesti

*There has been conjecture over the accuracy of the reporting of this result, which appeared in the journal Minerva (12.12.09)

Chinezul Timisoara

Chinezul Timisoara, founded in 1910, were named after Pavel Chinezul, a legendary Hungarian general who defeated the Ottomans in 1479. The club was formed by railway workers. Between 1911 and 1918 the team (as Temesvári Kinizsi) competed in the Hungarian league. After the 1914 -18 war the city of Timisoara became a part of Romania.
In 1922 Chinezul Timisoara won the first ever Romanian national championship. This was the first of 6 consecutive national title wins, a period of domination in Romanian football not equaled until the Steaua București era of the 1990s. 
The format of the championship was a knockout competition between 7 regional champions. These were:

Region	Champions
Arad	AMEF Arad
Bucharest	Tricolor Bucureşti
Braşov-Sibiu	Societatea Sportivă Sibiu
Bukovina	Polonia Cernăuţi
Cluj	Victoria Cluj
Oradea	Stăruinţa Oradea
Timişoara	Chinezul Timişoara

 None of these clubs is still in existence, and Cernăuţi is no longer in Romania, but is Czerniowce in Ukraine)

The tournament progressed as follows:

Polonia Cernăuţi	0	1	Tricolor Bucureşti
Chinezul Timişoara	3	0	Societatea Sportivă Sibiu
A default result : SSS forfeited the match
Stăruinţa Oradea	2	2	Victoria Cluj
Victoria Cluj	2	0	Stăruinţa Oradea (replay)
AMEF Arad bye

Chinezul Timişoara	2	1	AMEF Arad
Victoria Cluj	3	0	Tricolor Bucureşti
A default result : Tricolor forfeited the match

In the final Chinezul beat Victoria 5-1, future Romanian international Rudolf  Matek scoring 3 with Mihai Tänzer (who represented both Romania and Hungary) also getting a goal.

Balkan Cup 1929-31

The first edition of the Balkan Cup was played on a home and away league basis between October 1929 and November 1931.
The competing nations were Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria.
Albania expressed an interest, but withdrew before the tournament got under way.
During the course of this tournament Romania and  Yugoslavia also traveled to the World cup in Uruguay (Yugoslavia finishing in notional third place.).

Romania at the 1930 World Cup

Romania
The Romanian football federation had been founded in (1909). They made their international debut in 1922
 in the King Alexander Cup (a tournament with Poland and Yugoslavia). Romania also competed  in the Paris Olympics of 1924, but lost all 3 of their games. During the first Balkan Cup the team were under the guidance of  Constantin 'Costel' Rădulescu, (he was either coach or manager for 42 games from 1923 to 1940). 

Yugoslavia at the 1930 World Cup

Yugoslavia

The Football Federation of what was then known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes  was formed in 1919, and the national team made its entry into the international football arena at the Antwerp Olympics in 1920,  losing to Czechoslovakia and Egypt. 

The country was renamed Yugoslavia 1929. Yugoslavia reached the semi-final of the 1930 World Cup, where they were beaten 6-1 by Uruguay. 

Following the World Cup  Blagoje "Moša" Marjanović and Aleksandar "Tirke" Tirnanić (both of BSK) became the country's first professional players.


Greece
Greece had been represented at 1920 Olympics, an Izmir dominated side losing their only game 9-0 to Sweden, but did not compete in a full international until 1929. In fact their opening game of the Balkan Cup, a 2-1 win over Yugoslavia, was only their third official international. The Greece team featured 4 brothers, Olympiakos' Ntinos, Georgios, Vassilis and Leonidas Andrianopolous.


Bulgaria
The Bulgarian national football team was formed in 1922. In 1923 The Bulgarian Football Union was formed and the team's first match was held in Vienna in May 1924, a 6–0 defeat by Austria.

06.10.29	Romania	2	1	Yugoslavia	Bucharest
26.01.30	Greece	2	1	Yugoslavia	Athens
25.05.30	Romania	8	1	Greece	Bucharest
12.10.30	Bulgaria	5	3	Romania	Sofia
16.11.30	Bulgaria	0	3	Yugoslavia	Sofia
07.12.30	Greece	6	1	Bulgaria	Athens
15.03.31	Yugoslavia	4	1	Greece	Belgrade
19.04.31	Yugoslavia	1	0	Bulgaria	Belgrade
10.05.31	Romania	5	2	Bulgaria	Bucharest
28.06.31	Yugoslavia	2	4	Romania	Zagreb
25.10.31	Bulgaria	2	1	Greece	Sofia
29.11.31	Greece	2	4	Romania	Athens

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
Romania	6	5		1	26	13	10
Yugoslavia	6	3		3	12	9	6
Greece	6	2		4	13	20	4
Bulgaria	6	2		4	10	19	4

Iuliu Bodola

The tournament yielded an average of 5+ goals per game, and no draws. Bulgaria (twice, against Yugoslavia) were the only side to fail to score in all of their games. Despite finishing bottom Bulgaria were the only side to beat champions Romania.

Iuliu Bodola and Rudolf Wetzer of Romania were joint top scorers with 7 goals each. Bodola went on to represent Hungary.