Vivid Sport September 2004

Vivid Sport archive:

Regulars
SPORT
Just like the old days

by Craig Turp
September 2004

When a member of the UK press corps remarked that last month's Dinamo Bucharest - Manchester United two-legged football match resembled the old days - when the European Cup was an inspired paradox and not just a paradox - he knew what he was talking about. Anyone over the age of 30 present at the mayhem - of which more hereafter - that took place on 11th August will also share the sentiment. Before the monster that is the Champions League all but killed off two-legged European football, the European Cup, known as the Champions Cup, was a nerve racking endeavour that favoured the brave. The pitfalls of playing in what was then behind the Iron Curtain, or in freezing Scandinavia, or in tiny stadiums on Mediterranean islands, endeared the competition to all-comers, and imbued it with a romance that provoked more than one football writer to publish a book on the subject.

Alas, the very perils, intrigue and drama that proved so enchanting were to be its downfall. That the European Cup - open only to league champions - promised nothing except a fleeting chance of glory, and often ended in ignominy, was not enough for the demanding rulers of football clubs who muscled in on European football during the latter part of the 1980s. It is rumoured that Inter Milan's defeat to lowly Malmo of Sweden in the first round of the 1988-89 first spawned suggestions of what would become the Champions League: ''Wouldn't it be better if we could do away with unattractive teams from Sweden and guarantee ourselves more than just two games in the competition,'' someone may have said.

Whatever the exact phrasing was, less than four years later the Champions League was born. Two years after that it was opened to teams from the larger footballing nations who had not won their respective league title, while champions from lesser countries were denied the automatic right of entry. From that day on the champions of Romania, Ukraine, Malta, Liechtenstein or any other country that does not figure among the G14 group of elite football clubs have had to qualify in order to participate, while members of the G14 or their kin breeze directly into the competition, despite not having won their respective league championship. Inter, for example, have not won the Italian title since 1988; they have taken part in at least five Champions League campaigns since then however. Tiny little Sliema Wanderers on the island of Malta , who have hosted Juventus, Liverpool and Bayern Munich before now, have won eight league titles but have not taken part in the Champions League. They have to qualify, and never have; neither have Dinamo Bucharest, and after a determined but ultimately futile showing against Manchester United they too will have to wait at least another year.

Strictly in terms of quality of course, Sliema Wanderers - or Dinamo Bucharest for that matter - have no place in European footballs premiere competition. But the romance of the European Cup had nothing to do with the standard of football, and everything to do with David going up against Goliath. To take the analogy further, it is highly unlikely that David would have beaten Goliath and delivered Jerusalem if he had been asked to meet several other Philistines in the qualifying round.

So to see Manchester United - albeit a depleted version - run out to a deafening cacophony of boos and whistles at what is still known as the 23rd August Stadium was at once a marvellous reminder of the days when Europe's best regularly played in Romania, and a saddening realisation that the rarity of such occasions betrays the poverty of Romanian football. Despite taking the lead, Dinamo were never a match for United for long, and their eventual defeat came as no surprise to anyone present.

Nor did the abysmal organisation come as a surprise to anyone who has previously attended football matches in Romania. Anywhere else in the world, tickets are sold for a football match, and those tickets have a seat number on them. The number of tickets sold equals the number of seats available. It isn't rocket science, but it appears to be beyond the people who organise football matches in Romania. As such, thousands of people who have paid perfectly good money for tickets are refused entry, while interlopers and other shady characters occupy their seats. When the forces of order try to intervene, nothing happens. Quite simply, there is an under and overclass of Romanians who feel the law does not apply to them, and thus ignore it.

The worst example of this at the Dinamo - Manchester United game came in the press box. As usual, large numbers of people with no reason at all to be occupying press seats had managed to bribe or blag their way in; so many in fact that when the UK press corps was ushered into the press area, there were not enough seats to go around. An official complaint from Manchester United to UEFA will follow, and we can only hope that it will not fall on deaf ears.

Craig Turp is the Editor of Bucharest In Your Pocket.