Steaua Bucharest 3-0 St Patrick's Athletic
Thursday, 20 August 2009Three well contrived second half goals all but ended St Patrick's Athletic's Europa League adventure as they were emphatically beaten at an empty Ghencea Stadium.
In truth, it should have been much more as the skilful Romanian side, playing behind closed doors following crowd trouble in an earlier round, also missed a host of other chances in a one-sided encounter.
Having missed two sitters and brought a good stop from St Pat's goalkeeper Gary Rogers in the first half, the opening goal finally arrived on 56 minutes. Pantelis Kapetanos flicked the ball through for danger man Banel Nicolita, who beat Rogers with a powerful shot from 16 yards.
Polish international Pawel Golanski shot wide, while Nicolita was also just off target before the second goal arrived nine minutes later.
Working a one-two with Alexandru Tudose, right winger Nicolita got to the end line to square the ball for substitute Bogdan Stancu to tap home.
The game, and realistically the tie, was all but over ten minutes from time when Stancu scored his second goal of the night.
Kapetanos got past St Pat's skipper Jamie Harris to set-up Romeo Surdu to cross to give Stancu his sixth goal of the campaign.
St Pat's worked hard and did trouble Steaua on a couple of occasions.
Defender Dave Partridge fired wide in the first half and there was a good penalty shout for a foul on Stuart Byrne, while Damian Lynch poked off target on 78 minutes, but that was the sum of their efforts as the Dublin side were thoroughly outplayed.
Steaua Bucharest: Tatarusanu; Golanski (Tininho, 86 mins), Tudose, Baciu, Marin; Nicolita, Onicas, Ionescu, Ochirosii (Stancu, 54 mins); Surdu, Kapetanos (Grzelak, 81 mins).
St Patrick's Athletic: Rogers; Gavin, Harris, Partridge, Stevens; Guy, Lynch (Cawley, 86 mins), Byrne (Dempsey, 70 mins), O'Connor; Fitzpatrick (Quigley, 61 mins), O'Brien.
Referee: Alexei Nikolayev (Russia).
