Rapid

Rapid shares Bucharest with Steaua and Dinamo. Workers of the Romanian Railways founded the club on 25 June 1923 under the name CFR București, and the railway connection outlasted the name changes that followed: a rebrand to Rapid București in 1937, then came a reversal back to CFR in 1945 and a Soviet-era spell as Locomotiva București from 1950, before Rapid București settled for good in 1958.

The ground has stayed constant through all of it. Stadionul Rapid-Giulești sits in the Giulești district that gave the supporters their name — Giuleștenii — and holds 14,047, modest against the capital's bigger arenas but tied to the club's working-class origin in a way a newer stadium wouldn't be.

Rapid's honours board reads oddly for a club of this stature: three Liga I titles, in 1966–67, 1998–99 and 2002–03, against thirteen Cupa României wins stretching back to the 1930s. The cup dominance of that early era, seven titles inside eight seasons through the war years, has no real parallel among the trophies that came after.

What the club has not managed is a league title in the two decades since 2003, and against city rivals with heavier trophy cabinets, that gap has become the thing Rapid still has to answer for.