RRI Sports Club
Football
Florin Orban, 14.08.2024, 13:45
Romania will not be represented in the Champions League group stage this year either, which extends the absence of Romanian teams from the most important European inter-club competition to 11 years. The last Romanian presence in the League was recorded in 2013, when Steaua Bucharest, later renamed FCSB, reached the group stage after defeating Legia Warsaw in the play-off. This year, the closest to the League was also FCSB, which won the Romanian championship again after a 9-year break and passed the first two rounds of the qualifications.
However, on Tuesday, the progress of the Bucharest-based team came to a halt in the third preliminary round of the Champions League, after FCSB lost, at home, 2 to 3, against the Czech champion, Sparta Prague. In the first match, in Prague, the score was equal, 1 all. In Bucharest, FCSB did not have a good start in the match. At halftime, the Czechs were leading 3-0 and everyone thought that the score could become even more dramatic. The Romanian team had played poorly, without any strategy, had lost most of the balls in all areas of the field, had failed in the defense line, and the qualification had become only theoretical from possible. At the break, however, the Bucharest team’s coach, the Cypriot Elias Charalambous, made several changes. In the second half, the players showed more ambition, started to control the game and even became dangerous for the goal of the Czech champions. FCSB managed to reduce the difference on the scoreboard in the 60th minute, through a beautiful shot by the team captain, Darius Olaru, and optimism revived in the stands of the Steaua stadium.
In the 83rd minute, after the French Malcom Edjouma scored the second goal for FCSB, the fans erupted in cheers and everything had already become possible. The third goal, which would have sent the match into overtime, did not arrive, though, and FCSB lost the chance to advance to the Champions League. However, the Bucharest team remains in the European Cups. Next week, FCSB will face, in the Europa League group stage, the Austrian team LASK Linz, and is going to play the first away game, and, in two weeks’ time, they will play the return leg, in Bucharest. Even if they lose, FCSB will remain in Europe, and will play in the groups of the third continental competition, the Conference League. (LS)
