Sports
Football (soccer) is the most popular recreational sport in Satu Mare. There are two major football clubs in Satu Mare: Olimpia and Someşul, with Olimpia playing in the Romanian Liga III in the 2009/2010 season and Someşul playing in the Liga IV. There are two football stadiums in Satu Mare: Stadionul Olimpia with 18,000 seats and Someşul Stadium with 3,000 seats.
Other popular recreational activities include fencing, handball, bowling, women's basketball, karate and chess.
The local women's basketball team CSM Satu Mare is one of the best in the Romanian league; it finished third in the 2008/2009 season playoffs. The team plays its home matches in the largest indoor arena in the city, the LPS Arena, which has a capacity of 400 seats.
The Cypriot professional tennis player Marcos Baghdatis was brought to Satu Mare in 1998 for a month and a half by his former coach Jean Dobrescu to train and to participate in local tennis competitions alongside his fellow Davis Cup team member, Rareş Cuzdriorean, who is also a Satu Mare native with Cypriot citizenship.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)