2000 — Rugby Club Gura Humorului

Outside, it was pouring with rain. That was how a crime novel by a journalist who occasionally appeared on television began. As if it could somehow have been pouring with rain indoors. I won’t name him, since he has passed away, but it amused me. Luckily, I had already read that particular display of intellectual strain; otherwise, I might have begun this report by saying it was hot outside.

I don’t know whether the temperature had any influence on the outcome of the two-legged tie against Steaua, except perhaps to make the players long for sheepskin coats and the chance to blow warm air onto their fingers. Other than that, at least for the moment, there was never really any question about who would come out on top. Although...

I spent quite a while talking to Viorel Lucaci while we waited for the whistle to start the first leg. I discovered an open, straightforward man who instantly dissolved any hesitation I might have had about speaking just as openly and honestly myself. I won’t repeat everything we talked about here, but at the end of the match, with a bitter smile on my face, bitter because of the heat outside, naturally, just to carry my innocent irony all the way through, I promised him that we would get our revenge in the return leg.

By chance, I happened to be walking past Steaua’s bench while we were leading them, and I stole a glance at the expressions on the faces of their coaching staff. Vio was hiding his emotions well, smiling like a poker player who knows he has a good hand, but his other two colleagues immediately made me think of the pillar of salt from Sodom and Gomorrah. And that is where the comparison ends.

Right. “Brothers, we have won!” Mircea Dinescu said on Romanian television in 1989. I like quoting the poet every now and then; it gives me a peculiar appetite for life... I would have liked to say the same thing myself at the end of our home match. I might even have put on a sweater for the occasion, but it wasn’t to be. And not because we were unlucky, but because the details made the difference.

Who would have imagined that if someone had closed their eyes and counted to 2,000, one second at a time, then looked at the scoreboard, they would have seen Gura Humorului leading Steaua? I’ll tell you who: nobody. But those were our magical seconds, the moments when we showed that we can stand toe to toe with the giants of the LRK. They weren’t enough, but we left a mark across that ground scorched by sun and ambition: be warned, one day we’ll count to 4,800 with our eyes closed, one second at a time, and when we open them again, the sun will be shining on the scoreboard.

As a rule, I don’t pay much attention to detractors and shit-eaters, to put it mildly and politely. Turkish delight beats stevia hands down when it comes to flavour anyway. But I do want to say this much: I respect differences of opinion, criticism and observations. I reserve the right, however, to recommend that those who have done nothing particularly remarkable in their entire lives should continue criticising us exactly as they do now, using as few and as impoverished words as possible.

After all, we need something for contrast.