Oltul Curtişoara

The club itself dates only to 2013, and for most of that time it went about its business in Liga IV, the county-level division, without much to show for it. That changed in 2021–22 and again in 2022–23, when Oltul won the Olt county title in successive seasons — a rare feat for a club of this size. Neither title, however, bought promotion outright: in both years the club lost in the promotion play-off. Liga III still came, in the 2023/24 season, but through the back door, after other clubs above them withdrew and left a place open.

Since 2022 the team has been managed by Dan Ignat, a name that means more in Romanian football than the club's own history does — he played for Farul, Dacia and Vulaia before turning to coaching. Marius Jianu wears the captain's armband. Home matches are played at the Stadionul Tineretului in Curtişoara, a ground that holds 500, which tells its own story about the level at which this club still operates.

In the Cupa României, that level showed. In the 2022/23 first round of the regional phase, Oltul lost to ACS Roberto Ziduri, and heavily. A team playing in front of 500 people, drawn against opposition from outside its own county, found the gap in class hard to close. Promotion, too, remains something the club has been given rather than something it has won on the pitch — a distinction Curtişoara has yet to erase.