“Clear skies in Bucharest, rain in a province“. The dictatorship was informing in its own code tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu during his december 1989 official state visit to Iran, in Tehran. Indeed, in Timisoara, Romania’s most western city, dozens and than hundreds and thousands of protesters have raised their voices against the regime and for freedom and liberty. It was on an unprecedented scale.
The 114 martyrs' names on a memorial in Timisoara's central square, where many were killed and injured on the 17th of December 1989. It was the very beginning of the Romanian revolution which ended with Ceausescu's execution on Christmas Day
Mothers with babies in their lap were imploring soldiers not to shoot. “You could have been our sons” was the voice of reason. Yet the uprising was brutally crushed, with tanks and bullets. Over one hundred protesters have been killed, many more were injured, unidentified or have disapeared from hospital beds. Sunday the 17th of December ’89 was the bloodiest day in former Soviet block system collapse.
And it sounds like a legend yet an oddly unnatural midnight torrential rain washed the blood away from Timisoara’s streets. Sporadic shootings reminded the tragical sunday in the next couple of bitterly cold and silent days. Timisoara was already wiping its tears and awaiting the full wrath of Elena Ceausescu’s mighty power. “Today in Timisoara / Tomorrow in the whole country” was the desperate plea verse which was fortunately picked up in Bucharest, on Thursday evening, the 21st. The following events were to become history, a televised one all around the globe.
Some heroes were shoot even on Orthodox Cathedral's steps. Many more crosses have sprung up, encircled by flowers, candles and tears
There was though only one beginning, Timisoara’s sparkle on the seventeenth. Exactly twenty years on, on a Thursday of mourning when survivors and relatives of the dead were still questioning the unaccountability of heartbreaking events, the local football club have won its first ever European cup tie away from home.
On a bitterly frozen Maksimir pitch, where Theo Walcott dazzled Bilic’s Croatia with a hat-trick that have sent England to FIFA 2010 World Cup, Politehnica Timisoara honoured the memory of 114 martyrs and many other unidentified heroes. It was just an academic success for the Romanian “Violets”, who finished with the wooden spoon in UEFA Europa League’s group A, as Dinamo Zagreb would have missed anyway on qualification due to Anderlecht’s fine 3-1 win in Amsterdam’s ArenA, yet it brought a surreal change of fortune.
Politehnica Timisoara, a less known quantity on the European stage, boosted though its own little record in the past on the Continent, which felt only at the eighth hurdle, at the hands of Real Madrid. Whichever club visited Timisoara in either UEFA Cup or Cup Winners’ Cup, almost all among them accustomed to the heighty airs of Continental finals, left with a loss without scoring. MTK and Kispesti Honved, both from Budapest, in 1978, Celtic Glasgow and West Ham two years later, and Lokomotive Leipzig after another year, have succumbed without reply to Timisoara’s spirit. The norm was 1-0 or two – nil.
“Poli”, an abbreviation from Politehnica, knocked out Celtic with 1-0 in the return leg, Dan Paltinisanu‘s late goal pushing more than 40.000 souls into delerium on “1 May” stadium. Latchford was beaten, Charlie Nicholas was emerging on the losing side.
[ Ultra Viola Curva Sud, the passionate Poli Timisoara's fans, are always making a fine point with a well rehearsed coreography... "Who is jumping? / Who's jumping? / Hei, hei..."]
Timisoara have started in december ’89 the Romanian revolution and Politehnica continued some months later its fine exploits on home soil in European encounters. Even more famously, “Poli” have set the foundations for claiming another scalp with a 2-0 win against Paolo Futre’s Atletico Madrid in september 1990, which brought Sporting Lisbon to western Romania in the next round. And another 2-0…
There were 7 straight wins, with a 12-0 aggregate score, in three cases qualification being achieved, before Real Madrid came around in september ’92 and Timisoara conceded its first home goal in a 1-1 draw. Many years later, in october 2008, in the very next Continental tie, Partizan Belgrade inflicted Poli’s first ever home defeat.
All is now history. This season, as Romania’s vicechampions behind Petrescu’s surprise package Unirea Urziceni, temporarily renamed FC Timisoara carved an all together different story in Europe, starting with its first ever away point, a mesmerising 2-2 in Donetk against current UEFA Cup holder Shakhtar. From a home tie expert turned blue one year ago versus Partizan, Timisoara was snatching points on Continental winners turf.
As the “Violets” somehow hold the Ukrainians to a 0-0 in the renamed “Dan Paltinisanu” arena, reminding of the fine late defender and scoring captain against Celtic, the next qualifying round of UEFA Champions League once again proved them right away from home, in Stuttgart. Another 0-0, setting Markus Babbel managerial downfall.
Being though rerouted to UEFA Europa League, Timisoara hold its own even on Amsterdam ArenA, 0-0 with Ajax, but lost its fine art of winning at home. Not only Hleb scored for VfB Stuttgart on “Dan Paltinisanu” but Dinamo Zagreb and aforementioned Ajax managed at least two goals winning cushions in Timisoara.
Yet Timisoara have had its last word on a day of mourning. An unexpected win in a meaningless tie, played behind closed doors due to Croats’ fans antics when visiting Timisoara. The atmosphere was subjued not only by the bitter cold and frozen pitch yet the “Violets” gave a lot of meaning on a day of remembrance.
Too many have been killed by the oppresive regime on that bloody sunday of 17th. Twenty years on, too many years of waiting, of hope and hurt, were wiped out with a first away win on the Continent. The plaudits are going to new manager Ioan Ovidiu Sabau, at his first season in charge of the “Violets” with too many later on the bench in a dazzling merry-go-round. For how long will Sabau hold to his role, remains to be seen. And it’s not that much up to him but to newlish owners who had the audacity to swiftly part company including with Gheorghe Hagi.
Sabau, a former Duch Cup winner with Feyenoord as a hard-working midfielder, has his own memories from Ceausescu’s late days in power. It happened in mid-November ’89, in a decisive World Cup Italia Novanta qualifier, that Sabau have opened the gate for Romania’s fine hours in 1990, with one of his 8 goals scored along a 52 caps career for the national side in a 3-1 versus Denmark.
Yet Sabau will place Maksimir academical triumph among his finest moments as he rallied the “Violets” to a first ever away win in Europe twenty years on from a tragic day for Timisoara’s inhabitants. Just a few days before this climax, during a home game in the Romanian league, the famous “Ultra Viola Curva Sud” section of “Poli” fans have shown to the stadium and a national audience the largely written names, on huge placards, of the city’s brave martyrs. Long live their memory was their motto and the players have responded in the end: a hard fought 2-1 in Croatia, carved after the break…
Ironically indeed, there were foreign players as Taborda, a Portuguese goal-keeper previously on Porto’s books and who was beaten in Zagreb only by young defender Scutaru’s own goal, the Togolese tall international defender Nibombe and once World Cup finals goalscorer Winston Parks, a Costarican, who have pulled together to adjust their pride on a day of mourning.
NK Dinamo – FC Timisoara 1-2 will stay as a significant result in the troubled history of the club and as an incentive for another final push domestically, where the vicechampions and Romanian Cup finalists, already eliminated though this time around, are chasing for honours 3 points adrift of Petrescu’s Unirea, a rerouted club to UEFA Europa League as the only representative of a terribly corrupt and sinking Romanian league.
The current 2009-2010 UEFA Europa League final will be staged by Hamburg, on the 12th of May and, indeed, local HSV is still marching on. Here is the draw for the 16 games of the next knock-out round (matches to be played on the 18th and 25th of february): Rubin Kazan v Hapoel Tel Aviv; Athletic Bilbao v Anderlecht; FC Copenhagen v Marseille; Panathinaikos v AS Roma; Atletico Madrid v Galatasaray; Ajax v Juventus; FC Bruges v Valencia CF; Fulham v Shakhtar Donetk; Liverpool FC v Unirea Urziceni; Hamburger SV v PSV Eindhoven; Villarreal v VfL Wolfsburg; Standard Liege v Red Bull Salzburg; Twente Enschede v Werder Bremen; Lille v Fenerbahce; Sporting CP v Everton; Hertha Berlin v Benfica SL.
