The Balkan Cup was an international football tournament played on and off between 1929 and 1980 between countries from the Balkan region. The first tournament was played between Romania, Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria over 3 years from 1929 to 1931.
All teams played each other twice, home and away and were awarded 2 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. Romania won the first title winning with a game in hand after beating Yugoslavia 4-2. In the following cups the system would change with teams playing each other only once and instead of taking 3 years to complete it would change to one week. From 1932 to 1936 the Cup ran annually with the same four teams until the break-out of WWII. It began again in 1946 but Greece dropped out of the following tournaments and were replaced by Albania who would win the 1946 tournament by defeating Romania 1-0 in the final game. In 1947 Hungary entered the Cup and like Albania won it in its first attempt. Hungary were a world footballing power at the time and proved this with a 9-0 thrashing against Bulgaria. In 1948 the Balkans Cup expanded to 7 teams with Poland and Czechoslovakia entering the tournament. The 1948 Tournament was never completed due to unknown reasons. Hungary were topping the group at the time of its cancellation. Because of the expansion, the 1947 and 1948 competitions were officially called The Balkan and Central European Championship.
The Cup would not be played until 1973 where a group system was replaced with a Semi-Finals and a Finals system. Only four countries would compete, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. Bulgaria would win this first tournament since 1948 in away goals against Romania. The tournament consisted of 5 teams with Yugoslavia returning. Romania would win the last tournament by beating Yugoslavia 4-1 at home.
Read more about Balkan Cup: Finals, Top Scorers Per Tournament
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