Steaua Bucharest have suffered their biggest ever home defeat in European football after going down 5 – 1 in Ghencea last night. Visiting Stuttgart dominated the Europa League tie, opening the scoring after just five minutes and putting themselves in contention for the knock-out phase of the competition with the win. Steaua still lead Group E in the Europa League and look likely to proceed to the next stage, but if Stuttgart win their final group match and Steaua lose, the Bucharest team's fate will be decided on goal difference.

Steaua were definitely out of sorts, after scoring five minutes in, Stuttgart continued to pull the home team apart and raced to a 4 - 0 lead at the end of the first half. Serdar Tasci, Martin Harnik, Gotoku Sakai and Shinji Okazaki  scored for Stuttgart in the first 45 minutes. The opening goal was a well-struck header from a corner kick and the second came after Steaua's goalie Ciprian Tătăruşanu failed to clear a free kick. The ball dropped kindly for Martin Harnik, who made no mistakes with the finish. The two further goals in the first half came from open play, the result of confident attacking play from the German team.

Steaua's fortunes didn't improve after the break and Shinji Okazaki added the visitors' fifth 10 minutes into the second half. The rest of the game was played out in front of a subdued home crowd and Steaua's only goal came from Mihai Costea seven minutes before the end.

editor@romania-insider.com

photo source: uefa.com