Central Stadium of the Romanian National Football Centre

Buftea's ground is not built for supporters — there is no home team, and the low double-sided stand exists so scouts and federation staff can watch academy sides train and play, not so a crowd can roar anyone on. That single fact shapes everything else about the place: capacity was set at 450 when the gates first opened, before a later expansion brought it to 1,600, a modest figure that still reflects the venue's real purpose rather than any ambition to fill seats.

The site belongs to the Romanian National Football Centre, run by the Romanian Football Federation, and it earned its keep early — the pitches went into service in July 2011 for the European Under-19 Championship, with a formal opening ceremony following that September. That order of events, working ground before ribbon-cutting, says something about how the centre was meant to function from the start: a training base first, a showcase second.

What sets it apart from a standard lower-tier stadium is underfoot. Four pitches share the complex, three of natural grass and one artificial, letting the federation run parallel sessions or matches without pulling everything onto a single worn surface. That is the advantage a dedicated national centre has over a municipal ground with one pitch and a fixture list to protect.

The stadium sits on Strada Aviației in Buftea, a short drive north of Bucharest, close enough to the capital for national-team age groups to use it without a long commute, remote enough to train away from the city's attention.