Steaua Bucharest are in the Hungarian capital to play the second leg of a Europa League qualification match against the Budapest team Ujpest Thursday. The Romanian side won the first leg 2-0 in Bucharest last week.
An unknown caller phoned the emergency services from a provincial number at around midnight on Wednesday, claiming to have planted a bomb in the city centre hotel, the police said.
MOTHERWELL will face a trip to former European Cup winners Steaua Bucharest if they can overcome Flamurtari next week.
Jim Gannon's side went down 1-0 to the Albanians in Tirana last night.
But today's Europa League third qualifying round draw handed the Steelmen the chance of a crack at the Eastern European giants.
Popescu's admission comes just three days after he denied the allegations, calling a newspaper report that he had been a Securitate informant "a big lie."
However, he has now admitted he wrote four notes informing on teammates and other colleagues while he was playing at Universitatea Craiova.
The defender was part of a Romanian team that qualified for three consecutive World Cups starting in 1990 and for two European Championships. He also helped Barcelona win the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1997.
When the allegations surfaced on Monday, the 41-year-old Popescu said he had only signed a document in 1985 promising to "defend the national interests" during the regime of the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
However, he has now defended his actions under communism.
"Even if I wrote notes, I wrote good things," he said. "I praised (those) people."
During Ceausescu's rule, the Securitate relied on an army of 700,000 informants in a country of 22 million to keep tabs on the population. The regime's security services kept tabs on Romania's athletes, and some players involved in international competitions were reportedly asked to share details of their conversations with foreigners.
Romania's star football player Gheorghe Hagi, who is related to Popescu through marriage, came to his defence, saying sports had brought glory to Romania in the communist era.
"We (sportsmen) were the ambassadors for Romania. They should look elsewhere" for Securitate agents, he said.
Hagi denied that he himself had been an informant, instead accusing Steaua football club owner Gigi Becali of working for the Securitate.
Becali vigorously denied the accusations. "If It is proved I was an informer, I will hang myself," he said in a televised interview. Becali is a member of the European Parliament for the far right Greater Romania Party.
Daily newspaper Adevarul reported Monday that Popescu had been an informant from 1986 until the regime was toppled three years later.
Gheorghe Hagi (pronounced [gee-or-ger ˈha.ʤi] in Romanian; born February 5, 1965 in Săcele, just two kilometres from my home at Tarlungeni, in Transylvania), is a Romanian former football player and a living legend at home. He was famous for his passing, close control, long shots and was regarded as one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s.
Nicknamed "The Maradona of the Carpathians", he is considered a hero in his homeland as well as in Turkey. He has won his country's "Player of the Year" award six times, and was recently named Romanian football player of the century.
He played for the Romanian national team in three World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998, as well as in three European Football Championships in 1984, 1996 and 2000. He won a total of 125 caps for Romania, being ranked second after Dorinel Munteanu, and scored 35 goals, being ranked first.
In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Romania by the Romanian Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years. Hagi is one of the few footballers to have played for both the Spanish rival clubs Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
In March 2004, he was named among the top 125 living footballers by Pelé.
Club career
He started his career playing for the youth teams of Farul Constanţa in the 1970s, before being selected by the Romanian Football Federation to join the squad of Luceafărul Bucureşti in 1980 for two years. In 1982 he returned to Constanţa, but one year later, aged 18, he was prepared to make the step to a top team. He was originally directed to Universitatea Craiova, but chose Sportul Studenţesc of Bucharest instead.
In the winter of 1987 Hagi was transferred to Romanian giants Steaua Bucureşti as the team prepared their European Super Cup final against FC Dynamo Kyiv. The original contract was for one game only, the final. However after winning the trophy, Hagi scoring the only goal of the final, Steaua did not want to release him back to Sportul Studenţesc and retained him for the next years. During his Steaua years, (1987 - 1990), Hagi played 97 Liga I games, scoring 76 goals. He and the team reached the European Cup semifinal in 1988 and the final in the following year, champions of Romania in 1987, 1988 and 1989 and winning the Romania Cup in 1987, 1988 and 1989.
After the 1990 World Cup, he was signed by Real Madrid. The La Liga side paid $4.3 million to Steaua for him. Hagi played two seasons with Real Madrid and then was sold to Brescia Calcio.
Hagi helped Brescia Calcio win the Italian Serie B and get promoted to Serie A, but in the next season the club relegated back to Serie B, and after performing memorably on the 1994 World Cup, Hagi was signed by FC Barcelona.
After two years at FC Barcelona, sitting more on bench half season because of injuries. Hagi signed for Galatasaray S.K. at Galatasaray, he was both successful and highly popular among the Turkish supporters of the Istanbul side. Hagi and manager Fatih Terim built a team that would win four league titles. In 2000 was Hagi and Galatasaray's best year, with the Turkish side, lead by Hagi, managed to win the UEFA Cup after defeating Arsenal and then the European Super Cup Hagi's former club, Real Madrid. and win it, for the first time in Turkey's history. The mass hysteria caused by this win in Istanbul raised Hagi's popularity even further with the fans and made French ex-international Luis Fernández to say that "Hagi is like wine, the older it gets, the better it is". At 35 years of age, Hagi was living his career's best, winning every possible trophy with Galatasaray in 2000. When he retired in 2001, he remained one of the most beloved players in the Turkish and Romanian championships. Hagi is not only a prodigy in football, he also raised the quality of Turkish football to a new level.
National team
Hagi made his debut for the Romania national team at the age of 18 in 1983 in a game against Norway played in Oslo. He was part of the Romanian team until 2000.
Hagi led the Romanian team to its best ever international performance at the 1994 World Cup, where the team reached the quarter finals before Sweden ended their run after winning the penalty shoot-out. Hagi scored three times in the tournament, including a memorable goal in their 3-2 surprise defeat of South American powerhouse and previous runners-up Argentina. In the first of Romania's group stage matches, against Colombia, Hagi scored one of the most memorable goals of that tournament, curling in a 40-yard lob over Colombian goalkeeper Oscar Córdoba who was caught out of position. He was named in the Team of the Tournament.
Four years later, after the 1998 World Cup, Hagi decided to retire from the national team, only to change his mind after few months and play at the 2000 European Football Championship.
Hagi retired from professional football in 2001, age 36, in a game called "Gala Hagi" on the 24th of April. He still holds the record as Romanian national team top scorer......AND HE IS STILL LOVED THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF ROMANIA. HE IS OUR SPORTING HERO OF THE CENTURY !!!
The club STEAUA is no longer a Romanian brand any more, but a respected name in the world’s football hall of fame for more than a couple of decades. Steaua is arguably regarded worldwide as the representative club team of Romania.
FC STEAUA BUCURESTI was founded following to a decree signed off by Mihail Lascar on the 7th of June 1947, on behalf of the National Ministry of Defense of Romania. In the summer of 1946, a few generals and high officers of the Romanian Army were seriously considering starting up a military club and an Army’s football team. A few months later, in the spring of 1947, their endeavors led to the formation of the so called ’Sports Association of the Romanian Army’.
The first leader of the football team was also its skipper, Stefan Septville and the newly emerged team had its first ever training camp. Despite the fact the new team had to take a play off for promoting to the second Division, it was brought up to the top Division, as a replacement for the team Carmen, which was excluded form the top football of Romania. The first coach of the team in its first season in the top Division was Coloman Braun-Bogdan.
Soon the team was named CCA and won its first ever domestic title in Romania in 1951, under the helmet of Gheorghe Popescu, one of its honorary founding members.
Between 1951 and 1961, CCA won 5 more domestic titles, till its name was changed to STEAUA, in the summer of 1961.
What did STEAUA bring as an innovation to Romanian football?
Steaua has always promoted the skillful, free flowing and spectacular football, played at an amazing pace, which brought the nickname ’The Speedsters’ for the mid 80’s team . That STEAUA team became the first ever Eastern European club to win the highest trophy of the European Football, the ’Cup of the European Championships’ (or UEFA Champions League as it is known today).
In the 1990’s, our club’s team won the domestic championship of Romania for 6 times and represented the country 3 times in a row in the UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE competition.
(In dark contrast to our Bucharest archrivals, Dinamo,) Our club has always fought tooth and nail against the so called ’Cooperativa’, an association of clubs which allegedly fixed games towards the mutual benefit of all the parties involved and brought a poor reputation to Romanian soccer in Europe, especially after the communism was abolished in our country (December 1989).
All together, STEAUA BUCURESTI trophy cabinet is by far the richest in the country, as our team won 23 domestic titles, 20 National Cups and 5 Romania’s Supercups.
The Europeans Champions’ Cup- the big hit of STEAUA in 1986
On the 7th of May STEAUA very deservedly wrote its major piece of history. A year before, when our football needed mostly, a brand new team was born, destined to become a year later the Queen of the European Football: STEAUA BUCURESTI.
In the summer of 1985, coaches Emeric Ienei and Anghel Iordanescu made up a team, with a few young players, a few experienced ones, but all hungry for glory. That team made history for both our club and Romania. All of us should know this line-up by heart like a sweet piece of poetry: Duckadam, Iovan, Bumbescu, Belodedici, Barbulescu, T. Stoica, Boloni, Balint, Majearu, Lacatus, Piturca, Stangaciu, Weissenbacher, Balan, Pistol, M. Radu.
"Who are these Romanians’"
The sixteen players from above started the most successful yet campaign for the club on the 16th of September 1986, in the country of Prince Hamplet, denmark, again Vejle Bold Klub (including the former Barcelona player, Alan Simonsen). Our team put up a decent away performance and the game ended up with a hopeful 1-1 draw, M. Radu II being responsible for our goal that night.
A couple of weeks later, on our home ground, our team trashed the Danes, 4-1 and went through. This was the first maturity test for our rising ’star’ team.
Next came the champions of Hungary, Honved Budapest. The away game, on the 23rd of October 1985, was our team’s first defeat of the campaign, 0-1, despite a very attacking display from our players. Justice was done a couple of weeks later, when ’The Speedsters’ beat the Hungarian champions 4-1, much to the delight of a capacity crowd in Steaua stadium.
The next round STEAUA seemed to take a more approachable Finnish champion team, Kuusysi Lahti. The first game, played on our stadium on the 5th of March 1986, on a muddy pitch, ended up with a disappointing goalless draw and a warning about the strength and abilities of our opponents. In the away game, played on the Lahti stadium, with the prominent statue of the legendary athlete Paavo Nurmi watching from above, STEAUA won 1-0 and made the semifinals of the competition.
At this level now, we could not hope for an easy draw at all. When the strong clubs of Europe saw that STEAUA went already so far up in the contest, they raised their eye browses and asked themselves:’ Who are these mighty Romanians’’ The draw was made and the next name out of the hat for STEUA was the Belgian champions, Anderlecht of Brussells.
On the 2nd of April 1986, on the ’Constant van den Stock’ arena, a lucky 1-0 scoreline, through a 75th minute goal of Enzo Scifo, really flattered the home side. In spite of the final score, STEAUA played a game to be proud of.
On the next day, the headlines of ’Les Sports’ daily newspaper were:’ We have warned you, Anderlecht. You should have not overlooked the Romanian champions. Even though they do not have much history in Europe at the moment, as other dark horses like Bayern Munich and others, STEAUA played a very smart game on the Astrid park arena: they were able to impose their short passes game pattern, closed all the lanes to their box, played the game at their own pace, with a smile on their face, no panic and no complexes at all in front of their more illustrious opponents. Even the local crowd was delighted with their performance’.
The second game of the aggregate encounter really made its way into the golden book of our club history. On the 16th of April, in front of a boisterous 30000 capacity crowd, a dream came true: 3-0 to STEAUA and they booked a place in the Champions Cup final.
Sevilla 1986 ’ a landmark for our Club and for the Romanian football
Now STEAUA were regarded as the hot team of the European football, following their amazing run in this campaign. Only the simple act of presence, alongside FC Barcelona, for the most prestigious European Cup final in Seville, was above the wildest dreams of any Romanian fan.
7th of May 1986, stadium "Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan" in Seville, FC Barcelona- STEAUA Bucharest in the European Champions Cup final.
70000 fanatics of the richest club in the world at that time were ready for a ’fiesta’. None of them were even thinking their Spanish favorites will miss the chance in front of the king of Spain, Juan Carlos and his royal family. Sincerely, not even ourselves, glued on our TV sets in Romania, were expecting for too much, let alone to win the trophy. We just wanted STEAUA to put up a decent performance and go down in glory.
It was only our players and coaching staff who believed in their chance and played the game of their lives. They just confided in themselves, played and won, mere and simple. After a 0-0 in the normal time (we all thought that the scoreline might have been the same even if the game was played for the rest of the night), two halves of 15 minutes extra time followed and then the penalty shoot-out which STEAUA duly won, 2-0, goals from Balint and Lacatus.
After that game, STEAUA made its way into the history of the European football, just as its wonderful actors involved in the play. STEAUA also become the first European team from behind ’The Iron Curtain’ to win the ultimate European Clubs trophy.
Sevilla 1986 is still the landmark of our Romanian football, everything is reported to it even now. STEAUA win against Barcelona was also the dawning of a new generation of players, who starred for the ’Golden Generation’ of the Romanian national team.
The 7th of May 1986 will be the day to remember for all our STEAUA fans, the time when our golden boys produced the supreme satisfaction (we can hardly imagine to reproduce that now or in the near future) of winning the European Champions Cup.
At the moment Steaua Bucharest is Romania’s most famous football club team.
