Oţelul

Cosmin Contra lifted Oțelul's only Liga I trophy in 2011, the season the steelworks club from Galați became the first side from Moldavia to be crowned champions of Romania. That title carried them into the Champions League group stage the following autumn, a run few clubs from the city had imagined before or since. The Supercupa României followed that same year, won on the back of the league crown.

None of it lasted in the shape it was built. The original club, formed in 1964 around the workers of the Galați steel combine, went bankrupt and was wound up. Supporters would not let the name disappear: in 2016 they registered a new association, Asociația Suporter Club Oțelul Galați, through a court ruling that summer, and rebuilt from where the old side had fallen.

There have been near misses either side of that collapse. In 2005 Oțelul reached the Cupa României final and lost to Steaua București on penalties after a 1–1 draw. Nineteen years later, in 2024, the same story repeated almost point for point — a 2–2 draw with Corvinul Hunedoara, then defeat in the shootout. A UEFA Intertoto Cup, shared among eleven clubs that season, sits on the list from 2007, one of the odder trophies in Romanian football for how it was won.

Home games are played at Stadionul Oțelul, an all-seater ground that holds 13,500.