Steaua Bucureşti football team wins the European Champions Cup
May 7, 1986 was a day dedicated to the preparation of the 65th anniversary of the Romanian Communist Party, founded on May 8, 1921.
But this date remained in the memory of Romanians as a phenomenal day. On the 7th of May 1986, Steaua Bucureşti football team wins the European Champions Cup (CCE), at the "Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan" stadium in Seville (Spain). With the score of 2-0, they beat FC Barcelona in the final.
As an absolute premiere, the match is broadcast on Romanian television. Steaua becomes the first team in Romania to play a European final and win a European trophy at club level and the only team in a communist country to obtain the most important continental trophy.
However, the highest performance in the history of Romanian football at club level is not fully celebrated in the Romanian press, where the most important titles are dedicated to the Romanian Communist Party and its great achievements in its 65 years of existence.
Steaua's victory is only mentioned in small articles or in the pages where there is still free space. Even "Sportul", the only Romanian sports daily of that time, despite publishing over 300,000 copies that day, mentions the victory only at the bottom of the first page in the May 9 edition, with reference to the fourth pages and the last, where the correspondents' comments were found.
However, the remarkable event is celebrated throughout the country. Football was one of the few moments of respiro, when ordinary people got rid of communist propaganda, and on the night of May 7-8, the people took to the streets to enjoy the victory. The happiness was so great that about 30,000 people went to Otopeni airport to meet the champions.
The four penalties imposed by Helmuth Duckadam still arouse the fiery stories, when an entire country stood speechless in front of the televisions.