Too big for the new Steaua in the second division: Only 500 spectators came to the brand new Bucharest stadium for the game against Dunarea Calarasi.
Photo: imago images / Razvan Pasarica
Summer came to an end for me in Bucharest. At the beginning of October it was still very warm there, during the day a T-shirt was enough when stalking through stadiums, over cemeteries and to enchanted places in this city. Romania’s capital is well worth a visit, even if it may not be for comfort travelers. The people are nice and hospitable, although many of them struggle to make ends meet every month.
Football is also played, the city has three first and two second division clubs. The sporting quality is modest – with one exception, all national players play abroad – and the number of spectators is poor, the masses only flock to the big Bucharest derbies.
In 1986, Steaua Bucharest was the first Eastern European club to win the European Cup and, among others, kicked Bayern Munich into the swamp of oblivion. It was a long time ago, in the meantime capitalism has triumphed and Eastern European football sucked it out three times and spat it out five times. The club has been playing under the name FCSB since 2017 – because the country’s Supreme Court ruled that it is no longer allowed to use the name Steaua and the old club colors.
The Romanian Ministry of Defense had sued – because Steaua was founded in 1947 as a military association. The Steaua brand belongs to the army again. 70 years after the first club was founded, a newly created football department under the name CSA Steaua Bucharest started all over in the lowest division, supported by most of the Ultras. The new association is member-led. It remains to be seen whether this Steaua can erode the FCSB. When FCSB recently played against Steaua’s old enemy Dinamo Bucharest, there were over 30,000 people in the stadium – that’s also a house brand.
The Romanian master has been coming from Cluj for four years. The most expensive and nominally strongest team, however, is permanently provided by the SC Fotbal Club FCSB SA from Bucharest. Why? The answer is simple: because of Gigi Becali, who has owned the club for 18 years. The main trademark of the entrepreneur is his vulgarity in public. Born as a farmer’s boy, he achieved gigantic wealth in Romania at the turn of the Stone Age. Becali has multiple criminal records, denies the Holocaust, incites against homosexuals and is of course a good Orthodox Christian. He’s the best coach in the world, the best official, the most beautiful and potent man in Romania, the very best all-rounder … Because this unbearable guy pays, he can hire and fire as he likes.
Because the Ministry of Defense has banned Becali, his FCSB is no longer allowed to use the brand new Steaua Stadium. This is where the new Steaua, which has been playing in the second division since this season, kicks off. CSA Steaua Bucharest is currently not likely to move up to the top division for flimsy reasons. Probably under pressure from Big Brother Becali it is only going with great difficulty, of course he does not want another predator in the city and league.
Steaua is not an isolated case, there are many new and second start-ups in Romania. In Craiova, Cluj and Timisoara, too, two clubs with identical roots are vying for the favor of the masses. One is usually led by a local oligarch. It’s complicated and fabulously chaotic, it’s the wild Balkans that I love.
During our visit, the Steaua-Ultras unfortunately stayed away from the game against Dunarea Calarasi because they reject the corona-related measures of the football association. It’s a shame, we would have liked to see her flirtatious, especially since Steaua won 3-0 in front of around 500 spectators and played further up.
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