With 42 minutes played Steaua, leading their league match against Petrolul 1-0, were awarded a penalty. As Mihai Costea prepared to take it, three fans vaulted from the stand and attempted to run on to the pitch. Two were blocked by stewards but a third, Stefan Dragos Enache, evaded security, ran towards the defender George Galamaz and, from behind, punched him on the side of the head, breaking a zygomatic bone and leaving him deaf in his right ear – a condition which may or may not be temporary.
Enache kept running and was kicked – hard – by the Steaua defender Novak Martinovic, knocking him to the ground. As other players and Steaua's coaching staff raced over, Enache was kicked again by Martinovic and then the goalkeeper Razvan Stanca. The fan got to his feet and was led away by police.
Steaua representatives claim Enache had a metal object in his hand, but dropped it after hitting Galamaz, and that the object was then smuggled off the pitch by the Petrolul defender Enes Sipovic, who walked over to his team's bench to have a drink of water shortly after the incident. Sipovic himself insists he merely picked up a lighter thrown from the crowd and handed that to club officials.
Steaua have also been critical of the stewards who, once Enache had broken past them, failed to react in any way. When they were asked by the Petrolul manager Valeriu Rachita, a former Steaua player, why they had done nothing, they replied that they had thought they were not allowed to enter the pitch. For them, the fourth wall remained in place.
The referee, Robert Dumitru, tried to continue the game, which meant sending off Martinovic and Stanca for violent conduct, a decision that, although technically correct, has been widely criticised. Costea, demonstrating remarkable sang-froid, dinked his penalty Panenka-style to make it 2-0, at which the reserve goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarasanu, who had come on after Stanca's dismissal, was struck by a flare thrown from the stand behind the goal, suffering burns to his back.
Only then did the referee decide to delay the game for 10 minutes. He explained that he had not realised how badly hurt Galamaz was and said that he thought he had been taken off purely as part of a tactical reshuffle after the two sendings off. "I thought it was an isolated incident," he added. "I was 60 metres away and I didn't know what the situation was over there." After consultation with the other match officials and stadium security, he abandoned the game.
Petrolul are a club with a fine tradition, winning three league titles in the 1950s and 60s. In 1966 they even beat Liverpool 3-1 at home in a European Cup match (although that merely levelled the aggregate scores at 3-3 and lost the play-off). This is their first season back in the top flight after relegation in 2004 and with a new 15,500-seat stadium, opened in September, this should be a positive time for them.
Their fans, though, have caused persistent problems. Rachita has even been accused of giving them money and providing alcohol for them. Last year, for reasons that remain opaque, they vowed that there "will be blood" at the game against Steaua. Enache is part of an ultra group known as the Drug Addicts, who stoned the team bus of Petrolul's local rivals Astra before their Romania Cup match this season.
As the Romanian League considers what action to take against Petrolul, the ruling body's president, Dumitru Dragomir, has made it clear that Martinovic and Stanca will not have their red cards rescinded. He claimed to have spent most of Monday poring over the rulebook to find a way of letting them off and to have discovered nothing. The suspicion, though, is that his reluctance to help is related to a recent falling out with Steaua's controversial and broadly unsympathetic president Gigi Becali.
"It's impossible," said a predictably outraged Becali. "I can't believe what I'm seeing. It was all premeditated. I can't believe it. Why did the referee send off my players? They only defended themselves and their honour. It's incredible!"
Even if he is suspended, though, Martinovic has seen his reputation enhanced. The Serbian centre-back had looked to be on his way out of Steaua after Becali criticised him following a poor performance, and has been playing at right-back because of an injury crisis. Now, though, fans have called for him to be made captain, although given Alexandru Bourceanu was handed the job only last month and that Becali has already said Martinovic still has to impress with his football ability, that is unlikely to happen.
The attack on Galamaz, though, has prompted a new sense of unity among Steaua fans. After the 5-0 Europa League defeat to Maccabi Haifa, which left them four points behind the Israelis and five behind Schalke 04, there had been little interest in Thursday's home game against Maccabi. Now a bumper crowd is expected at the National Arena. Talk of a 50,000 sell-out is probably overambitious, but Enache's assault has reinvigorated Steaua's European campaign.
It's doubtful Galamaz thinks it a price worth paying.
