Steaua Bucuresti v Grasshoppers Zurich
Football: Uefa Europa League: Playoffs
Venue: "Ghencea" stadium, Bucuresti, Romania
Thursday 19th August – Kickoff time: 20:45 GMT+2

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Steaua Bucuresti

What seemed to be a serious project at the beginning of the summer, with Victor Piturca and his staff taking over Steaua turned out to be an another goof because of some arguments between the new manager and owner, Gigi Becali.

After just two months and two official games in Liga 1, ex-Romania national team coach Piturca left Steaua and his place was taken by another former star player of Steaua, Ilie Dumitrescu. As a player he activated in England (Tottenham and West Ham) while as a coach he reached his career high point in 2004 when he was AEK Athen’s head coach.

Steaua changed their strategy after a disappointing previous season and signed more than a dozen players this summer, most of them young, promising Romanian talents. They started the championship well, having 10 points from 4 games so far.

If we take a look at their recent European performances we can see that the UCL was more than they could handle at that moment, but their Europa League (Uefa Cup) record is quite impressive.

Steaua reached the quarter-finals in 2005 after eliminating Valencia but they were defeated then by another Spanish team, Villareal. A year later they achieved their most important European performance in the modern history of the club, reaching the semi-finals. They were very close to get into the final but Middlesbrough made an impressive come-back and denied them the honor. The “red and blues” made it through the group stage once again in the 2006-2007 season, when they were eliminated in the round of last 32 by Sevilla. Last season, they finished 4th in a group with Fenerbahce, Twente and Sheriff Tiraspol.

Grasshoppers Zurich

Grasshoppers is a club with great tradition in Switzerland, founded in 1886 they won no less than 27 national titles and 18 cups.

The present is not so bright for the club, the last time they won the title was back in 2003 while the last Swiss cup was won in 1994. So there is 7 years without winning any trophy and having disastrous European performances.

GCZ finished 3rd last season in Swiss Super League which allowed them to be present in the Europa League playoffs. They finished behind champions Basel and Young Boys. In the current season, after 5 stages GCZ are only 8th out of 10 teams, having won just one game so far.

We cannot talk about recent performances in European Cups, they are more like counter-performances. They “managed” to suffer their most severe defeat in their history last year, 0-6 against Lech Poznan in the second qualifying round of the Europa League. They reached the group stage of Uefa Cup two years in a row, finishing 5th in both occasions, losing all their games. Grasshoppers lost 70% of their away games in European Cups.

The Betting Verdict :

There is a lot of enthusiasm at Steaua at this moment, brought by the new coach Ilie Dumitrescu who is trying to gain the supporters respect in order to have a peaceful life in “Ghencea”. The best way of doing that is by getting results and Steaua’s fans cannot conceive an eventual wrong step in this game.

Steaua proved to handle the pressure in important moments throughout the last few years, they managed to eliminate Standard Liege and Galatasaray Istanbul in the last qualifying round of the UCL (seasons 2007 and 2008) and they are very strong when playing at home so I cannot see Grasshoppers going home with a positive result from Bucharest.

The Pick :

Steaua Bucuresti 2-1 Grasshoppers Zurich

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Steaua to win at 1.73 Paddy Power