THE HOUSE OF BUCHAREST
FCSB 0 West Ham 3
Having eschewed the chance to visit the northern extremities of Denmark earlier in the season, Romania was the furthest I would travel in the group stages to catch West Ham on the road. I had travelled there before with West Ham in the 1999-2000 season for a UEFA Cup two-legged knockout tie, witnessing a 2-0 reverse on a quagmire of a pitch, that the silky skills of Lampard, Ferdinand, Sinclair, Moncur and even Paolo Di Canio were powerless to lay a glove on.
It couldn’t have been more different from tonight, 23 years later, West Ham’s sixth group game, which was something of a dead rubber as Hammers had already qualified for the knockout stages by winning the group. David Moyes consequently felt he would take most of the U-21 squad to the game, and promptly stuck a couple of them in the starting XI, and the rest on the bench. It seemed a bold move from the Moyesiah, but with his side currently just a point from the Premier League relegation zone, this was as good a free hit game as any to see how the youngsters might fare if they were thrown into the deep end in the coming weeks.
Squeezing 20,000 fans into the national stadium and its 55,000 capacity, meant that rather than a game of two halves, this was a game of two ends. West Ham’s 2,850 fans at one end, and the other 17,250 locals who could be bothered to attend up at the other end. This fan geography served to create a bizarre crowd effect like two halves of a Wimbledon Final, the noises following the ball. Fair play to the locals, whose team had only accrued two points from their first five group fixtures, but there they were, still turning up to follow their side.
They can’t have been too pleased to hear the pockets of celebration from the other end of the ground, roaring three times in increased intensity throughout the game, the first played out in front of them on forty minutes as Pablo Fornals, playing his 150th game for the club, was put through by a perfectly timed pass from Ben Johnson, the Spanish striker placing his left foot shot wide of Stefan Tarnovanu and into the corner of the FCSB net.
This ‘FCSB’ thing, which I haven’t mentioned yet, probably needs explaining, and I suppose halfway through a match report involving the team is as good a place as any. Steaua Bucharest, as they were once known, were famous for being the only club from a communist country to win the European Cup, which they did in 1986, beating Barcelona on penalties in the final, before going on to win the 1986 European Super Cup. After the collapse of communism, Steaua Bucharest became AFC Steaua Bucaresti in 1998, and severed ties with the government. After being owned by different businessman for the next 16 years, they were eventually forced by law to surrender the name in 2014, so decided to call themselves Football Club FCSB. Not exactly a subtle change, and the ministry of national defence, in an attempt to draw a line under the club’s history, reactivated the AFC Steaua Bucaresti name as the rightful owner of the original name, logo and history, creating a brand new team, but with the legacy history behind it. ‘AFC Steaua Bucaresti’ currently competes in Romania’s Football Liga 2, but are prevented from ever gaining promotion to Liga 1, due to current Romanian laws which prevent publicly owned clubs from participating in Liga 1. Kapisch? Something like AFC Wimbledon in reverse.
Back to the game. Ten minutes into the second half, debutant Divin Mubama at the far post headed home his first goal for the club past Tarnovanu, his header deflecting into the net past the defender Dawa. A UEFA match official, who had probably never played football in their life, recorded it as an own goal, crediting Dawa with the dubious honour. Just before the end of the game, the FCSB keeper fumbled an Ollie Scarles’ cross in front of Fornals, who gleefully smashed home his second, and West Ham’s third, of the game.
13 Alphonse Areola, 2 Ben Johnson, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 8 Pablo Fornals, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 12 Flynn Downes, 21 Angelo Ogbonna (Captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 32 Conor Coventry, 68 Ollie Scarles, 72 Divin Mubama
Substitutes: 50 Harrison Ashby, 58 Kamarai Simon-Swyer, 59 Keenan Appiah-Forson, 62 Freddie Potts, 70 Kaelan Kasey
Goalscorers: Pablo Fornals (2), Joyskim Dawa (og)
