| A crowd of just under 2500 greeted the Swansea and Steaua players last night as the Swans played their final home friendly before the big kick off against Rushden and Diamonds next Saturday. The gulf in quality between the sides was obvious right from the start as the Swans found it difficult to wrestle possession away from Bucharest. The Romanians smooth passing game saw them switch the play from flank to flank with ease and it was only the gritty defending of the Swansea players and the Romanians lack of poise in front of goal which kept the scores level during a lacklustre first half for the Swans. In fact, Swansea's only first half effort came from a Jason Smith shot after good work from James Thomas, which the Steaua keeper dealt with easily. At the other end Roger Freestone was having a much busier time dealing with wave after wave of Romanian attacks. The Swans keeper pulled off a particularly good one handed stop from Steaua striker Raducanu after defender David Smith had lost possession just inside the area. Freestone also had a lucky escape just before half-time when a Raducanu shot came back off the underside off the crossbar, but luckily for Swansea, Ogagaru failed to score from the rebound with the goal gaping.
Half Time - Swansea City 0 Steaua Bucharest 0
The second half started much as the first had finished, with the Romanian side attacking at will and only last gasp defending preventing them from opening the scoring. Steaua did manage to find the net twice early in the half but had both goals disallowed for offside. With the match degenerating into a constant stream of substitutions (15 altogether!!!) and the picky referee seemingly blowing his whistle every 2 minutes, the Vetch Field crowd seemed to lose interest in the action on the pitch but did reserve a cheer for the referee when he decided to substitute himself and bring on the fourth official with 20 minutes to go. With the Swans heading for a credible (if not deserved) draw, Freestone came out to claim what looked like an easy catch from a hopeful looped cross but fumbled his one handed catch which gave Steaua striker Adrian Neaga the opportunity to hook it over the Swans keeper into the empty net. One late scare for Steaua saw Andrew Mumford hit a 20 yard free kick, which the Romanian keeper managed to keep out at the foot of the post, but the Romanians hung onto their lead to win the game.
Full Time - Swansea City 0 Steaua Bucharest 1
A pretty meaningless match which will give no indication to how well we'll do in the coming season but there were a few positive things to take away from the game. The fact that we only conceded one goal when it quite easily could have been five or six must bode well for the coming campaign. I was also impressed with our passing on the rare occasions when we tried to play the ball out of defence. I counted no less than twelve completed passes on one occasion before we lost possession. With one more friendly against Woking next week before the opening game on August 10th, I'll wait until we play 90 minutes against Rushden before I make any judgements on our prospects for the coming season.
| 
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.