Club Atletic Oradea


Asociația Club Sportiv CAO 1910 Oradea, commonly known as Club Atletic Oradea, CA Oradea, or simply as CAO, is an amateur Romanian football club based in Oradea, Bihor County.
The team was founded as Nagyváradi Atletikai Club in 1910, when Transylvania was part of Austria-Hungary. Over its history, CAO has won one Romanian national title, one Hungarian national title, and one Romanian national cup. It was dissolved in 1963, but was re-established in 2017 and commenced play in the fifth division.
The home ground of "the White and Greens" is the Stadionul Iuliu Bodola, which has a seating capacity of 11,155.

History

Early years (1910–1940)

in 1910 was a prosperous city in the Kingdom of Hungary, with a 90% Hungarian population. A commercial and transport hub, the city was an early hotbed of the game of football, which had arrived in 1902 with inhabitants returning from study or work, abroad or in Budapest. The sport was gaining in popularity, but there was not yet an organized club to represent the town in matches against Kolozsvár or Temesvár. Established in 1910, when Transylvania was still part of Austria-Hungary, Nagyváradi Atletikai Club – in Romanian: Club Atletic Oradea – will soon become the symbol of the football from Oradea. Its initials, NAC, then CAO, will require respect. The colors of the club were white and green. The constituent assembly was held on 25 May 1910, in the Emke Café, the board of directors being Dr. Emil Jonas, chairman, Béla Mikló, executive president, Andor Szabo, secretary, and Dr. Kálmán Kovács, cashier, and the affiliation to the Hungarian Football Federation was sought. On 31 July NAC played its first game, against the Kolozsvár railway workers’ club KVSC, and in January 1912 a home ground was secured in Rhedey Park. The next month, a touring team from England came to town: Bishop Auckland, the Northern League champions that season, beat NAC 8–0.
Before World War I, the club activated only on local and a regional level, they joined the eastern division of the Southern Hungarian League and in 1913 NAC won 25 of their 31 matches. In 1914, as champions of the division, NAC was entitled to participate in the national finals tournament in Budapest, but this competition never took place due to the outbreak of war in June.
After the war, Transylvania became part of Romania, as the Great Union was declared and then ratified by the treaty of Trianon. Nagyvárad found itself 12 km beyond Hungary’s borders, and was now officially called Oradea, but the club and the city were still dominated by Hungarians. One of the most talented local players unearthed during this period was Elemér Berkessy.
Transylvanian teams joined the Romanian national championship in 1921–22, but NAC – now also known as Clubul Atletic Oradea – was beaten in the "fight" for Town of Oradea champion title by Stăruința Oradea and then by Înțelegerea Oradea for the first few seasons, thus did not qualify for the national finals until 1923–24. They beat Universitatea Cluj and Jahn Cernăuți, before defeat in the final by Chinezul Timișoara – who would win the first six Romanian titles after the Great Union.
, one of the most important players of Oradea.
In 1932–33, after another spell confined to the regional tournament, CAO appeared in an expanded national competition, organized as two parallel leagues of seven teams; they finished second in their division, while local rivals Crișana Oradea came third in the other one. Two years later,
with the national league reorganized into one division, CAO finished as runners-up, sandwiched between the two dominant clubs of the period, Ripensia Timișoara and Venus București. In 1938–39 the club was relegated to a restructured Divizia B, where they remained until the next war brought a strange upturn in fortunes.
In 1932, the management of the club decided that contact with football in other countries would help the development of the sport in Oradea. So they undertook a twelve-match tour in France and Switzerland, during which they beat Olympique Lillois, who would that season become inaugural French national champions, 5–2. The following year the tour was in France and its North African colonies, and Oradea was spreading its fame, and that of Romanian football, around the continent. During the interwar period CAO supplied eighteen Romanian internationals, the vast majority of whom were, incidentally, ethnic Hungarians, Jews and Germans.
Players who starred in CAO's green and white stripes in this period included: Ferenc Rónay, the first ever goalscorer for the Romanian national football team ; Nicolae Kovács, a forward who was one of only five men to play at the first three World Cups; Iuliu Baratky, a Hungarian from Oradea who opted to stay in Romania throughout the World War II, becoming a legend at Rapid București and Iuliu Bodola, a prolific goalscorer throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s. Thanks to the Bucharest chief of police ’s misuse of funds for his club Venus București, Bodola was transferred to the capital in 1937.

The Romanian-Hungarian champion (1940–1963)

The Second Vienna Award in August 1940 annexed northern Transylvania, including Oradea, to Hitler’s ally Hungary, while Romania was in the throes of its own right-wing military dictatorship. Many footballers of German or Hungarian origin who were at clubs in Bucharest, Timișoara, Arad or other parts of Romania, crossed the new border into this region and joined clubs in Oradea or Cluj-Napoca ; many of them signed for CAO – now, once again, known officially by its Hungarian name, NAC. After one season back in a Transylvanian league, NAC was promoted to the Hungarian top division. They finished second in 1942–43 and then in 1943–44 they became the first team from outside Budapest to win the Hungarian championship in its 43-year history, finishing a huge 13 points ahead of the second placed team Ferencváros.
The players who helped the club to this historic achievement included some major Hungarian and Romanian footballers of the age:
Gyula Lóránt, from western Hungary, was only 20 years old during NAC's title-winning season. He went on to play at Vasas, alongside László Kubala, who in 1949 fled the incoming Communist government and formed a team of Hungarian footballers who would play exhibition matches around Western Europe. Lóránt tried to escape and join Kubala, but was captured and interred, until the national team coach secured his release. Lóránt played for Hungary from 1949 until 1955, encompassing the greatest period of Hungarian success: he played in central defence for the Aranycsapat, the Mighty Magyars of the early 1950s. Besides winning the Romanian championship with UTA Arad and three more Hungarian titles with Honvéd, Lóránt went on to coach Bayern Munich in the late 1970s.
, one of the club symbols.
Iuliu Bodola or Gyula Bodola was an ethnic Hungarian born in what is now Brașov in 1912. After a hugely successful seven-year spell as a prolific striker with CAO in the 1930s, and an equally fruitful three years at Venus București, he headed back to Oradea after the annexation of northern Transylvania by Hungary in 1940 and played for NAC for five years. After the war, he moved to Budapest and represented MTK Budapest. During his years in Romania he played 48 times for the Romanian national football team, while from 1940 to 1943 he was a regular for Hungarian national football team. Remarkably, he held the Romanian international goalscoring record for 66 years, from 1931 until 1997, when Gheorghe Hagi overtook his total of 30 goals. The municipal stadium in Oradea is now named after him.
, one of the club's and Romania best players ever.
József Pecsovszky known in Romania as Iosif Petschovschi or simply ‘Peci’, was another young member of the successful NAC team and was capped by Hungary at the age of 21. An attacking midfielder from Timișoara, of Hungarian extraction, Peci would later become a hero in Arad due to his starring role in UTA's three league titles in the 1940s,
and then won two further championships with CCA București in the 1950s. His first game for Romania was against Hungary in Budapest in 1945, alongside Spielmann and Simatoc; he scored, but Hidegkuti and Puskás scored two each in a 7–2 win for the Magyars. Pecsovszky is one of the all-time greats of Romanian football.
Francisc Spielmann, known in Hungary as Ferenc Sárvári, top-scorer for NAC in their title-winning season, with 23 goals; he was also the Hungarian player of the year.
The coach of the side throughout NAC's Hungarian period was 1920s CAO hot-shot Ferenc Rónay.
Gusztáv Juhász, also spelled as Gustav Iuhași, had been a regular in midfield for the Romanian national football team since 1934, when he was also part of the CAO team that finished second in the Romanian championship. Together with Bodola and Rudolf Demetrovics, Juhász was part of the great Venus București team of the late 1930s.
Nicolae Simatoc, a reserve, was the only ethnic Romanian in the NAC squad; he was kept out of the starting line-up by the all-Timișorean midfield of Petschovschi, Demetrovits and Juhász. Simatoc, known as Miklós Szegedi in Hungary, would go on to spend one season alongside Kubala at FC Barcelona, as well as two years at Inter Milan.
The 1944–45 Hungarian season was abandoned after four games due to the movement of the front, and NAC never played in the Hungarian league again: the annexed region was occupied by Romanian troops in 1944 and awarded to Romania at the end of the war. NAC/CAO changed its name to Libertatea Oradea in 1948, and then to ICO Oradea the following year after the Soviet takeover of Romania. Petschovschi, Bodola and Ronnay left for Ferar Cluj – the third-placed team in Hungary in 1943–44 but also now returned to Romanian sovereignty – while five of the championship-winning team would form the core of a new dominant power in Romania, ITA Arad.
By 1948–49, only three players remained from the great NAC team of 1943–44. And yet ICO Oradea became Romanian champions. Gheorghe Váczi, a Hungarian who was capped by Romania, contributed 21 goals in 26 matches. They also had names such as Vécsey, Spielmann, Vasile Ion, Bodo, Zilahi, Serfözö or Mircea David and the coach in that year was Nicolae Kovács, former CAO player and brother of the Ștefan Kovács who would coach Ajax to great success in the early 1970s.
As Progresul Oradea and a Divizia B team, it reached the 1955 Cupa României final which was lost with 6–3 în front of CCA București. The following year as a Divizia A team, the club won the 1956 Cupa României final with 2–0 against Divizia B team Energia Câmpia Turzii. After a brief period as CS Oradea, the name was changed to Crișana Oradea – extremely confusingly, because this had been the name of a completely different club in the town before the war. After yo-yoing between the top two divisions for a few years, in 1963 the club was dissolved. That same year another club from Oradea won promotion to the top division, Crișul Oradea, a club which was mostly known as FC Bihor Oradea. The city of Oradea blazed brightly in the region's football firmament, with some of Hungary and Romania's greatest players of the age – one cup, and a league title in two countries – but it is now very much in the shadows: FC Bihor was dissolved on 12 January 2016 after a stormy history and in the spring of 2017 this dissolution subsequently realizing a strange reversed situation of the early 1960s.

Refounding (2017–present)

On 22 December 2016 CAO 1910 Association was founded, then on 17 March 2017 the association changed its status as a sports association named: Asociația Clubul Sportiv CAO 1910, thus marking the refoundation of the white and green team.
The refounding of the club was followed by a marketing promotion period in which, among other things, the official website of the club and the Facebook official page were launched.
Then on 28 July 2017 a partnership was signed between CAO and CSM Oradea, the team that took over the FC Bihor Oradea youth academy after its dissolution, but which didn't have a senior squad, so through this partnership CSM Oradea ensured a continuity for the youth players at senior level and CAO assured a youth academy. In the same period the team was enrolled in Liga V.
At the end of the season CAO had an impressive ranking line, 24 wins, one draw and only one defeat, 146 goals scored and 21 conceded, 73 points, with 15 more than their main promotion rival, Dinamo Oradea. After the promotion, "the white and greens" continued their strategy to promote young players, being ranked 2nd in the Liga IV, Bihor series, at the end of the 2018–19 season, 13 points away from the champions, CSC Sânmartin, a team with many players of certain quality and experience, as Salif Nogo, Alexandru Sorian or Florin Pop, among others.

Crest and colours

Crest

Club Atletic Oradea's first emblem, used between 1910 and 1919, was an almost replica of River Plate crest, the differences consist of a green sash instead of a red one, and also the initials NAC wrote on diagonal, in opposition with the sash. For the next 20 years, the club used the first logo that introduced the green stripes, positioned on a white background, inside of a brown circle. On the logo were the two initials, CAO and NAC, as a symbol of the Romanian-Hungarian culture and friendship that existed around the club.
In 1930, at the 20th anniversary of the club, the administrative staff decided to make a special logo. They modified the current logo, changing the places between the white background and green lines. At the time, the club was in the Hungarian championship, so on the top of the crest appeared only NAC, as an abbreviation, wrote with gold colour. On the sides appeared the laurels and on the bottom of the logo, on two different ribbons were marked the year of foundation and the current year.
The last form of the logo with Hungarian influences was during the 1940s, with the same white and green stripes, now having some gold lines between them. On the top of the logo was written Nagyváradi AC, on the bottom, the year of foundation 1910 and in the middle was placed a local coat of arms.
After 1945, the club was moved back in Romania, but this time under the communist regime, fact that led to the removal of any Hungarian names. The club's name, as well as the crest, were frequently changed, not less than five times in the next 20 years. Some of them were lost in time, but for example, between 1951 and 1958, when the club was known under the name of Progresul Oradea used a triangular logo, with a bleu, blue and white water tower in the middle. On the top of the crest appeared the name of the club, in red colour.
In 2017, after the refoundation, the club moved back to the name of Club Atletic Oradea and the original white and green colours. The new logo uses a rounded shape, with a green background and a gold outline. Above the logo are two golden stars representing the two national titles won by the club in Hungary and Romania, inside the shape appears with white letters the name of the club and the year of foundation, as well as a stylized golden shape of the Oradea's Fortress.

Colours and Kits

The original colours of the club are white and green, this combination was used almost regularly with the exception of some periods, in which colours such as bleu, blue or white were printed on the kits.
The classic home kit of Club Atletic Oradea consists of a white body with green stripes, white shorts and green or white socks. After the refoundation, the club used in the first season a printed form of the original kits used by the club, as a symbolic connecting bridge of the current side with the glorious history of the squad from the banks of the Crișul Repede river. Starting with the 2019–20 season, CAO also adopted a red and blue kit, current colors of Oradea and Bihor County, city and region which it represents.

Grounds

Club Atletic Oradea plays its home matches on Iuliu Bodola Stadium in Oradea, with a capacity of 11,155 seats, the biggest from Bihor County and named after Iuliu Bodola, CAO's great player of the 1930s and 1940s. The stadium was opened officially in 1924 and was renovated several times, in 2007 the benches were replaced by plastic seats, reducing the capacity from 18,000 to 11,155. The original capacity had already been reduced in 2003, when after a match between FC Bihor Oradea and Oțelul Galați, the resistance structure of the second grandstand was affected, due to the too numerous public, the respective grandstand being closed since then. In the meantime, it has reached a very advanced state of degradation, being decommissioned. The club also uses Motorul Stadium for some of the friendly or youth teams matches.
In the first 14 years of their existence, "the white and greens" used to play the home matches on the historical stadium of the city, Tineretului Stadium, known at that time as Rhédey Garden, with a capacity of 5,000 people. The stadium was replaced as the first ground with the opening of the new stadium in 1924.

Support

Rivalries

CAO's bitter rivals are Ripensia Timișoara, but also has rivalries with teams such as: UTA Arad or Politehnica Timișoara. In the past, CAO also had important rivals at the local level, matches against teams such as Stăruința Oradea or Crișana Oradea being recognized for their intensity.

Youth program

CAO has formed its academy following the partnership signed with CSM Oradea, the club which took over the youth academy of Bihor Oradea after its dissolution in 2016. Since July 2020, CAO–CSM Academy is coordinated by Stelian Farcău and Florin Farcaș. The coaches of the Academy are: Claudiu Mutu, Sorin Todea, Horea Rădulescu, Sorin Pop and Lucian Ciocan.

Honours

Romania

Leagues

Leagues

First team squad

Out on loan

Second team squad (CAO Primavera)

Out on loan

Club officials

Board of directors

RoleName
President Florin Mal
Vice-President Marcel Boldis
Sporting Director Marius Chereji
Operational Manager Florin Negruț

Current technical staff

RoleName
Manager Florin Farcaș
Assistant Manager Dorin Mihuț
Goalkeeping Coach Vlad Ghețe
Primavera Manager Claudiu Mutu
U19 Manager Sorin Todea

Shirt sponsors and manufacturers

Chronology of names

NamePeriod
Nagyváradi Atletikai Club 1910–1918
Club Atletic Oradea 1918–1940
Nagyváradi Atletikai Club 1940–1945
Libertatea Oradea1945–1948
Întreprinderea Comunală Oradea 1948–1951
Progresul Oradea1951–1958
CS Oradea1958–1961
Crișana Oradea1961–1963
Club Atletic Oradea 2017–present

League history

SeasonTierDivisionPlaceCupa României
2019–204Liga IV 1st
2018–194Liga IV 2nd
2017–185Liga V 1st
1962–631Divizia A13th Round of 32
1961–622Divizia B 1st
1960–612Divizia B 5thRound of 32
1959–602Divizia B 3rd
1958–592Divizia B 14th
1957–581Divizia A12th Semi-finals
19561Divizia A8thWinners
19552Divizia B 1st Final
19541Divizia A14th Round of 32
19531Divizia A12thRound of 32
19521Divizia A6thSemi-finals
19511Divizia A3rdRound of 16
19501Divizia A7thSemi-finals
1948–491Divizia A1st Semi-finals

SeasonTierDivisionPlaceCupa României
1947–481Divizia A6thRound of 32
1946–471Divizia A8th
1943–441NB I1st
1942–431NB I2nd
1941–421NB I5th
1940–412NB II 1st
1939–402Divizia B 5th
1938–392Divizia B 2nd
1937–381Divizia A 7th Round of 16
1936–371Divizia A6thRound of 32
1935–361Divizia A4thRound of 16
1934–351Divizia A2ndQuarter-finals
1933–341Divizia A 3rdRound of 32
1932–331Divizia A 2nd
1924–251Divizia A5-8
1923–241Divizia A2nd


  • 1910–13 – Friendly matches and amateur level
  • 1913–14 – Southern Hungarian League, 1st place, unofficial competition
  • 1914–18 – Competitions suspended during WW I
  • 1918–21 – The club was inactive
  • 1921–22 – Divizia A, Oradea zone, eliminated by Stăruința
  • 1922–23 – Divizia A, Oradea zone, eliminated by Înțelegerea
  • 1923–24 – Divizia A 2nd place
  • 1924–25 – Divizia A Quarter-finals
  • 1925–32 – Regional Tournament
  • 1932–33 – Divizia A, 2nd place, Group 2
  • 1933–34 – Divizia A, 3rd place, Group 2
  • 1934–35 – Divizia A, 2nd place
  • 1935–36 – Divizia A, 4th place
  • 1936–37 – Divizia A, 6th place
  • 1937–38 – Divizia A, 7th place, Group 1, relegated to Divizia B
  • 1938–39 – Divizia B, 2nd place, West Series, Group South
  • 1939–40 – Divizia B, 5th place, Seria I
  • 1940–41 – NB II, Cluj Series 1st, promoted
  • 1941–42 – NB I, 5th place
  • 1942–43 – NB I, 2nd place
  • 1943–44 – NB I, 1st place, champion
  • 1944–45 – NB I no place, NB I was suspended due to WW II
  • 1945–46 – Moved back to Divizia A
  • 1946–47 – Divizia A, 8th place
  • 1947–48 – Divizia A, 6th place
  • 1948–49 – Divizia A, 1st place, champion
  • 1950 – Divizia A, 7th place
  • 1951 – Divizia A, 3rd place
  • 1952 – Divizia A, 6th place
  • 1953 – Divizia A, 12th place
  • 1954 – Divizia A, 14th place, relegated to Divizia B
  • 1955 – Divizia B, 1st place, promoted to Divizia A
  • 1956 – Divizia A, 8th place, won Cupa României
  • 1957–58 – Divizia A, 12th place, relegated to Divizia B
  • 1958–59 – Divizia B, 14th place, Seria I
  • 1959–60 – Divizia B, 3rd place, Seria III
  • 1960–61 – Divizia B, 5th place, Seria III
  • 1961–62 – Divizia B, 1st place, Seria III, promoted to Divizia A
  • 1962–63 – Divizia A, 13th place, relegated to Divizia B and dissolved
  • 1963–2017 – the club was disbanded and did not participate in any official competition
  • 2017–18 – Liga V, 1st place, Seria I, promoted to Liga IV, the club was refounded after 54 years of absence
  • 2018–19 – Liga IV, 2nd place
  • 2019–20 – Liga IV, 1st place

    • Notable former players

    The footballers enlisted below have had international cap for their respective countries at junior and/or senior level.
    ;Romania
    ;Hungary
    ;Romania-Hungary