OK, just to clear up any misunderstanding, West Ham’s next Europa Cup rival Astra FC is not some outfit from Vauxhall, south London, but a Romanian team on the up!
The club was founded 94 years ago and after spending most of their time trawling around the lower divisions they are now performing in Liga 1 – they are nobody’s pushovers!
The club first qualified for the Europa Competition at the end of 2012-13 after a fourth placed finish.
Astra moved to Giurgiu in September 2012, playing its last game against Dinamo Bucharest and winning 1–0. The club now plays in the Marin Anastasovici Stadium
The 2013–14 season was the most successful season in the club’s history, reaching 2nd place in Liga 1 losing the title by only five points to Steaua Bucharest and winning the Romania Cupon penalties to the same team.
A month later they defeated Steaua on penalties again, and won the Romanian Super Cup.
In terms of world rankings, however, the International Federation of Football History and Statistics puts the Irons in at 231st position with the Romanians not in the top 500.
Romanian’s are usually technically gifted footballers, so this will probably be a big step up. Hopefully we will have Jenkinson / Valencia / Ogbonna / Reid back and Payet available for these ties, Sakho should be available for the second leg so we can start to see what the first team can do.
It’s probably unfair to pick on individual players BUT it must be clear now that Nolan, Jarvis, Maiga, Amalfitano and Zarate are not up to the required standard – Noble is struggling and why he was given a five-year contract is mystifying!
I’m sure lessons were learnt last night, a far stronger team need to play in this round. I am still confident that we will have a good run in the EL & hopefully get through to the knockout stages.
Are you lot really that daft? nolan maiga ok total crap but zarate and jarvis both put in man of the match performences in the first two rounds,so much negativity i just don’t get it?
saying that both will be lucky to even make the bench when the real team starts againts the ass. 🙂