Liverpool vs Dinamo Bucharest, 1984 European Cup Semi-Final
Encyclopedia
The 1983-84 UEFA European Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool
of England and Dinamo Bucharest of Romania was one of two association football ties that made up the penultimate round of the 1983–84 European Cup, Europe's primary club football competition. Liverpool, who had won the competition three times, were appearing in their fifth semi-final, while it was Dinamo Bucharest's first and only appearance at this stage of the competition
. The other semi-final in the competition that year was contested between Dundee United
and Roma
. Liverpool won the tie 3–1 on aggregate, and went on to be crowned European champions after beating Roma in the final
. The tie has been described as one of Liverpool's "finest hours", in the face of "bitterly effective opposition" from Dinamo.
The tie consisted of two legs – the first held at Anfield
in Liverpool
on 11 April 1984, and the second two weeks later at 23 August Stadium in Bucharest
. The matches are remembered for their highly physical and confrontational nature, which climaxed in the Liverpool player Graeme Souness
being subjected to repeated severe abuse and intimidation before and during the second leg, after he had injured the Bucharest captain Lică Movilă
in the first match at Anfield. Souness withstood the various forms of intimidation, however, and was given the man-of-the-match
award in Bucharest. In 2010 The Times
wrote, "Souness is still remembered in the Romanian capital for a display of incredible grit and fortitude in the face of naked hostility from the players of Dynamo Bucharest, who were hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Scotsman for an uppercut that broke their own captain's jaw".
A number of Liverpool players who played in the games have since written at length about the physical aspects of the tie; in his 2009 autobiography Ian Rush
wrote, "our games against Dinamo were the most brutal of my entire career", while in his autobiography Kenny Dalglish
wrote, "I can honestly say that I have never been in such a war zone as this confrontation with Dinamo Bucharest".
earlier in the season
, and were on course for an unprecedented treble of trophies under new manager Joe Fagan
, who had succeeded Bob Paisley
at the start of the season. Over two legs Liverpool had beaten Odense, Athletic Bilbao
, and Benfica to progress to the semi-final.
Dinamo Bucharest gained entry to the competition by winning the 1982–83 Romanian football
Liga I
championship and thus becoming Romanian champions. They had defeated Kuusysi
, Hamburg
(the defending European champions) and Dinamo Minsk to reach the semi-final. It remains Dinamo Bucharest's only appearance at this stage of the competition.
Liverpool were drawn against Danish champions Odense in the first round, winning the tie comfortably 6–0 on aggregate.
In the second round Liverpool were drawn against Spanish champions Athletic Bilbao
. The first leg at Anfield ended in a 0–0 draw, but Liverpool won the return leg at the San Mamés Stadium
1–0, courtesy of an Ian Rush goal in the sixty-sixth minute, to win the tie 1–0 on aggregate. In the quarter-finals Liverpool played Portuguese champions Benfica, managed by Sven Goran Eriksson. The first leg at Anfield was won 1–0 by Liverpool; in the second leg, played at the Estádio da Luz, Benfica's home ground, Liverpool prevailed by a score of 4–1, to take the tie 5–1 on aggregate.
Dinamo Bucharest's opponents in the first round were Finnish champions Kuusysi
. Dinamo Bucharest won the first leg 1–0 away and the second leg 3–0 at home, thus winning the round 4–0 on aggregate.
The Romanians' opponents in the second round were reigning European champions Hamburg. The first leg, which was played in Bucharest, was won by Dinamo 3–0. The second leg was played at Hamburg’s home ground Volksparkstadion; Hamburg won the match 3–2, ("Dinamo ruined their [Hamburg's] evening with two goals in the last five minutes to send the holders crashing out at the first hurdle")
which meant that Bucharest took the tie 5–3 on aggregate. Dinamo Bucharest's opponents in the quarter-finals were Soviet
champions Dinamo Minsk. The first leg, played in Minsk, ended in a 1–1 draw. The second leg, played in Bucharest, was a close contest, but Dinamo Bucharest won 1–0 to take the tie 2–1 on aggregate.
Liverpool won the first leg, which was part of a record nine-match home-winning sequence in Europe for the club, by the narrow margin of 1–0 after midfielder Sammy Lee
scored "with a rare header" in the twenty-fifth minute. Bucharest nearly scored a late equaliser when a shot by Ionel Augustin
beat Bruce Grobbelaar
only to hit the post. The first leg was "marred by repeated fouling by the Romanians".
Liverpool secured a great advantage early on in the return leg when striker Ian Rush scored an away goal (and his one hundredth goal for Liverpool) in the eleventh minute, leaving the Romanian champions needing three goals to win the tie thanks to the away goals rule
. Bucharest striker Costel Orac
scored in the thirty-ninth minute, but the tie was effectivley killed off in the eighty-fourth minute when Rush scored a second goal. After the match Joe Fagan commented: "I'm proud of the way my players helped and sustained each other when things might have gone wrong. They didn't seem to have any nerves."
The matches between the two teams are chiefly remembered for being highly physical in nature. The first leg at Anfield was described by Ian Rush in 2008 as follows: "Nothing prepared us for the way they applied themselves at Anfield. The Dinamo players hacked and kicked at us from start to finish, so much so we seemed to spend most of the game leaping in the air to avoid late or over-the-top tackles. I was punched, elbowed and spat at so many times that at the end of the game my shirt was covered in spit".
The physical and aggressive nature of the Anfield encounter reached a peak in the seventieth minute, when the Liverpool midfield player and captain Graeme Souness knocked out in an off the ball
incident his Bucharest counterpart Lică Movilă, breaking the Romanian's jaw in two places. There are conflicting accounts of events leading up to the altercation.
Of the incident Alan Kennedy
wrote in his autobiography in 2005: "As this guy turned away to play a one-two, Graeme turned right into him and caught him with a beautiful right cross, smack on the jaw. It pole-axed the guy. He went down flat but the play went on. The referee didn't see it. No one really saw it. That was the end of Movilă, who was stretchered off with a broken jaw". In 2010 Kenny Dalglish wrote: "As the clock hit 70 minutes, Graeme hit Movilă. The ball was going out for a throw-in, everyone was looking out wide, so Graeme just punched Movila. The Romanian never saw it coming and the referee and linesmen certainly never saw it. I understand that Movila has since said his team-mates initially thought he was lying on the ground play-acting". Rush described the incident as follows: "Everyone seemed to be engaged in, quite literally, a running battle with their opposite number, no-one more so than Graeme with Movilă. Their heated exchanges boiled over on several occasions and, eventually, exploded. Graeme challenged Movilă for the ball, there was a tussle, which ended with Graeme winning the ball and playing it forward. As Graeme began to move forward Movilă had a go. Through the corner of his eye Graeme saw it coming and instinctively ducked, but the blow caught him on the temple. Movilă had picked on the wrong guy. Graeme swung around and let him have a haymaker. Movilă immediately hit the ground like a bag of spanners. We were mounting an attack so neither the referee or the linesman saw the incident, which was just as well. When play was eventually stopped, Movilă still hadn't moved. He was taken from the field and treated by medics, who discovered that his jaw was broken".
In an interview in 2009, Souness himself described the episode as follows: "Occasionally I'd get a man marker in matches – if it wasn't Kenny [Dalglish] being marked, it would be me instead. This particular guy was following me everywhere on the pitch, pulling my shirt and I just got frustrated. We were winning 1-0 at the time, attacking the Kop end, and he was tugging on my shirt as I was running into the area, so I did a foolish thing – I swung round and punched him. The referee didn't see it and I got away with it." The incident has drawn strong criticism from Graham Spiers
, who in September 2002 described Movilă as "the most overlooked of all Souness's victims", and in November 2002 Spiers wrote, "Lica Movila (Dinamo Bucharest). The most overlooked of all the Souness hatchet-jobs. In the semi-final of the 1983 European Cup, and behind the referee's back, Souness actually broke Movila's jaw in two places before the Romanian was carted from the field in agony". In 2011, Henry Winter
described Souness's verbal evisceration (as a pundit) of Carlos Tévez
as "doing to Tévez what he did to a Dinamo Bucharest player in the 1984 European Cup semi-final".
The return leg was highly charged as a result of the Movilă incident, and Souness became a target of abuse and threats, not only from the capacity 60,000 crowd in the 23 August Stadium and the Bucharest team on the pitch, but also from policemen, stewards, and airport officials in the city; Alan Hansen
wrote in his autobiography, "On our arrival in Romania, even the soldiers at the airport had no compunction about drawing his attention to it [the Movilă incident], with gestures that indicated that Graeme could expect to leave the country on a stretcher". One journalist has written that Souness had to "run a gauntlet of hate" in the Romanian capital.
Rush described the second leg as "enough to make your blood curdle", Hansen has stated that it was "the most hostile atmosphere any of us had ever known", while Dalglish wrote, "I was well aware that open warfare had been declared by Dinamo, and the 60,000 crammed into the 23 August Stadium screamed for Movilă to be avenged. From the first whistle, Dinamo players took it in turns on Graeme. One Romanian tried to top him, another caught him so hard that his dented shinpads were visible through ripped socks". In 2009, Souness described events on the pitch during the second leg as follows:
"In the return game in Romania, there was a lot of publicity about how unhappy Dinamo were with me. There were 60,000 people in the stadium and all the banners were about what they thought should happen to me. However, I think I played one of my best games ever for Liverpool that night. I remember as we pulled up to the stadium, the guards were putting their fingers up to their eyes and pretending to pull them out. It's fair to say there was a lot of anger directed at me that night. I remember lining up in the centre circle and one of their midfield players, who was quite an aggressive guy, pointed at me and motioned as if to say, 'It's you and I tonight.' So I put my thumb up to him and said, 'Yeah okay, I'm looking forward to it.' We won 2–1 on the night, but I think the worst thing we could have done was get that second goal because after that, three or four of their players must have thought to themselves, 'We're going out, but let's see if we can nail him.' However, I was a vastly experienced player at the time. I was 30-years-old, and I managed to avoid all the challenges that came my way".
The Liverpool Echo
wrote in 2009, "Unfazed by it all, Souness relished the abuse and let his feet do the talking, this time with a man-of-the-match display to help Liverpool win 2–1 and reach the final", while The Official Liverpool FC Illustrated History records that, "By full time his [Souness's] socks were torn to shreds, his shin pads split, and his legs bruised from top to bottom". In 2011, a group of Liverpool supporters reminiscing on the club's official website
about the 1983–84 European campaign described the backs of Souness's socks at the final whistle as being "in ribbons".
The club's official website in 2010 wrote, "with every boo, whistle and jeer, the Reds skipper grew in stature and orchestrated proceedings as a place in the final was memorably secured".
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
of England and Dinamo Bucharest of Romania was one of two association football ties that made up the penultimate round of the 1983–84 European Cup, Europe's primary club football competition. Liverpool, who had won the competition three times, were appearing in their fifth semi-final, while it was Dinamo Bucharest's first and only appearance at this stage of the competition
Single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event...
. The other semi-final in the competition that year was contested between Dundee United
Dundee United F.C.
Dundee United Football Club is a Scottish professional football club located in the city of Dundee. Formed in 1909, originally as Dundee Hibernian, the club changed to the present name in 1923...
and Roma
A.S. Roma
Associazione Sportiva Roma, commonly referred to as simply Roma, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma have participated in the top-tier of Italian football for all of their existence but one season in the early 50s...
. Liverpool won the tie 3–1 on aggregate, and went on to be crowned European champions after beating Roma in the final
1984 European Cup Final
The 1984 European Cup Final was an association football match between Liverpool of England and Roma of Italy on 30 May 1984 at the Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy. It was the final match of the 1983–84 season of Europe's premier cup competition, the UEFA Champions League. Liverpool were appearing in...
. The tie has been described as one of Liverpool's "finest hours", in the face of "bitterly effective opposition" from Dinamo.
The tie consisted of two legs – the first held at Anfield
Anfield
Anfield is an association football stadium in the district of Anfield, Liverpool, England, with a seating capacity of 45,522. It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892 and was originally the home of Everton F.C. from 1884 to 1892, before they moved to Goodison Park...
in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
on 11 April 1984, and the second two weeks later at 23 August Stadium in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
. The matches are remembered for their highly physical and confrontational nature, which climaxed in the Liverpool player Graeme Souness
Graeme Souness
Graeme James Souness is a Scottish former professional football player and manager.Souness was the captain of the successful Liverpool team of the early 1980s and player-manager of Rangers in the late 1980s as well as captain of the Scottish national team. He also played for Tottenham Hotspur,...
being subjected to repeated severe abuse and intimidation before and during the second leg, after he had injured the Bucharest captain Lică Movilă
Lică Movilă
Lică Movilă is a retired Romanian footballer, who played primarily as a midfielder.-Career:Movilă was born in Brăila and made his debut in the Romanian football Liga I on 21 June 1981 for SC Bacău, in a 5-2 loss to FC Argeş. He spent four seasons with SC Bacău...
in the first match at Anfield. Souness withstood the various forms of intimidation, however, and was given the man-of-the-match
Man of the match
In sport, a Man of the Match or Player of the Game or Man of the Series award is given to the outstanding player, almost always the one who makes the most impact, in a particular match or series. The term was originally used more often in cricket before being adopted by other sports. This can be a...
award in Bucharest. In 2010 The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote, "Souness is still remembered in the Romanian capital for a display of incredible grit and fortitude in the face of naked hostility from the players of Dynamo Bucharest, who were hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Scotsman for an uppercut that broke their own captain's jaw".
A number of Liverpool players who played in the games have since written at length about the physical aspects of the tie; in his 2009 autobiography Ian Rush
Ian Rush
Ian James Rush, MBE, is a retired football player from Flint, Wales. He is best remembered as a player for Liverpool, where he was among the top strikers in the English game in the 1980s and 1990s. He also had spells playing at Chester City, Juventus, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Sheffield...
wrote, "our games against Dinamo were the most brutal of my entire career", while in his autobiography Kenny Dalglish
Kenny Dalglish
Kenneth Mathieson "Kenny" Dalglish MBE is a Scottish former footballer and the current manager of Liverpool F.C.. In a 22-year playing career, he played for two club teams, Celtic and Liverpool, winning numerous honours with both. He is the most capped Scottish player, with 102 appearances, and...
wrote, "I can honestly say that I have never been in such a war zone as this confrontation with Dinamo Bucharest".
Background
The 1983-84 season arguably marked the height of Liverpool's dominance in domestic and European football. The club was attempting to win its fourth European Cup in seven seasons, and were also the reigning English champions, having won the English league during the 1982–83 season, which meant that they qualified for the 1983–84 European Cup. They had also already won the League CupFootball League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
earlier in the season
1984 Football League Cup Final
The 1984 Milk Cup Final was an association football match between Liverpool and Everton. Liverpool were extremely fortunate to make it to the final of the competition after knocking out a Walsall side from the 4th Division who most neutrals and pundits would agree were the superior team at Anfield...
, and were on course for an unprecedented treble of trophies under new manager Joe Fagan
Joe Fagan
Joe Fagan was an English football manager best known for being manager of Liverpool F.C. from 1983 to 1985.- Career:Joe Fagan's playing career was largely spent at Manchester City for whom he signed in 1938...
, who had succeeded Bob Paisley
Bob Paisley
Robert "Bob" Paisley OBE was an English football half back turned manager. His association with Liverpool was to span nearly half a century including his contribution to the club, first as a player, then as a physiotherapist and coach, and finally as manager.In nine years as manager between 1974...
at the start of the season. Over two legs Liverpool had beaten Odense, Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Club, also known as Athletic Bilbao, is an association football club from Bilbao in Biscay, Spain. The club has played in the Primera División of La Liga since its start in 1928. They have won La Liga on eight occasions...
, and Benfica to progress to the semi-final.
Dinamo Bucharest gained entry to the competition by winning the 1982–83 Romanian football
Romanian football league system
The Romanian football league system refers to the system in Romanian club football that consists of several football leagues bound together hierarchically by promotion and relegation.-Liga I:...
Liga I
Liga I
Liga I, or in full, due to sponsorship reasons, Liga I Bergenbier, is the top division of the Romanian football league system. Before the 2006/2007 season, it was called Divizia A, but the name had to be changed following the discovery that someone else had registered the trademark "Divizia A"...
championship and thus becoming Romanian champions. They had defeated Kuusysi
FC Lahti
FC Lahti is a Finnish football club, based in the town of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish First Division after placing last in Finnish Premier League during season 2010...
, Hamburg
Hamburger SV
Hamburger Sport-Verein, usually referred to as HSV in Germany and Hamburg in international parlance, is a German multi-sport club based in Hamburg, its largest branch being its football department...
(the defending European champions) and Dinamo Minsk to reach the semi-final. It remains Dinamo Bucharest's only appearance at this stage of the competition.
Liverpool
| Round | Opponents | First leg | Second leg | Aggregate score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Odense, | 1–0 (a) | 5–0 (h) | 6–0 |
| 2nd | Athletic Bilbao Athletic Bilbao Athletic Club, also known as Athletic Bilbao, is an association football club from Bilbao in Biscay, Spain. The club has played in the Primera División of La Liga since its start in 1928. They have won La Liga on eight occasions... |
0–0 (h) | 1–0 (a) | 1–0 |
| Quarter-final | Benfica | 1–0 (h) | 4–1 (a) | 5–1 |
Liverpool were drawn against Danish champions Odense in the first round, winning the tie comfortably 6–0 on aggregate.
In the second round Liverpool were drawn against Spanish champions Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Club, also known as Athletic Bilbao, is an association football club from Bilbao in Biscay, Spain. The club has played in the Primera División of La Liga since its start in 1928. They have won La Liga on eight occasions...
. The first leg at Anfield ended in a 0–0 draw, but Liverpool won the return leg at the San Mamés Stadium
San Mamés Stadium
Estadio San Mamés, AKA La Catedral , is a football stadium in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The stadium is the home of Athletic Bilbao, known as "Los leones de San Mamés-Bilboko lehoiak" . They are known as Los leones because their stadium was built near a church called San Mamés...
1–0, courtesy of an Ian Rush goal in the sixty-sixth minute, to win the tie 1–0 on aggregate. In the quarter-finals Liverpool played Portuguese champions Benfica, managed by Sven Goran Eriksson. The first leg at Anfield was won 1–0 by Liverpool; in the second leg, played at the Estádio da Luz, Benfica's home ground, Liverpool prevailed by a score of 4–1, to take the tie 5–1 on aggregate.
Dinamo Bucharest
| Round | Opponents | First leg | Second leg | Aggregate score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Kuusysi FC Lahti FC Lahti is a Finnish football club, based in the town of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish First Division after placing last in Finnish Premier League during season 2010... |
0–1 (a) | 3–0 (h) | 4–0 |
| 2nd | Hamburg Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein, usually referred to as HSV in Germany and Hamburg in international parlance, is a German multi-sport club based in Hamburg, its largest branch being its football department... |
3–0 (h) | 2–3 (a) | 5–3 |
| Quarter-final | Dinamo Minsk | 1–1 (a) | 1–0 (h) | 2–1 |
Dinamo Bucharest's opponents in the first round were Finnish champions Kuusysi
FC Lahti
FC Lahti is a Finnish football club, based in the town of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish First Division after placing last in Finnish Premier League during season 2010...
. Dinamo Bucharest won the first leg 1–0 away and the second leg 3–0 at home, thus winning the round 4–0 on aggregate.
The Romanians' opponents in the second round were reigning European champions Hamburg. The first leg, which was played in Bucharest, was won by Dinamo 3–0. The second leg was played at Hamburg’s home ground Volksparkstadion; Hamburg won the match 3–2, ("Dinamo ruined their [Hamburg's] evening with two goals in the last five minutes to send the holders crashing out at the first hurdle")
which meant that Bucharest took the tie 5–3 on aggregate. Dinamo Bucharest's opponents in the quarter-finals were Soviet
Football Federation of the Soviet Union
The Football Federation of USSR was a governing body of football in the Soviet Union and since 1972 the main governing body of football in the country. The Federation was created late in 1934 by the decision of the All-Union Council of Physical Culture the Football Section of USSR as a public...
champions Dinamo Minsk. The first leg, played in Minsk, ended in a 1–1 draw. The second leg, played in Bucharest, was a close contest, but Dinamo Bucharest won 1–0 to take the tie 2–1 on aggregate.
Matches
The semi-final between Liverpool and Dinamo Bucharest was held over two legs in Liverpool and Bucharest, on 11 April 1984 and 25 April 1984, respectively. It was the first meeting between the two clubs.Liverpool won the first leg, which was part of a record nine-match home-winning sequence in Europe for the club, by the narrow margin of 1–0 after midfielder Sammy Lee
Sammy Lee (footballer)
Samuel "Sammy" Lee is an English football coach and former player. He played most of his career for hometown club Liverpool during the 1970s and 1980s as a midfielder, and also represented England fourteen times....
scored "with a rare header" in the twenty-fifth minute. Bucharest nearly scored a late equaliser when a shot by Ionel Augustin
Ionel Augustin
-Career:He was born in Bucharest and made his debut in Divizia A with Dinamo Bucureşti in 1975. He spent eleven seasons with Dinamo, winning the league title three years in a row from 1982 through 1984. Midway in the 1985/1986 season, he was transferred to Victoria Bucureşti, where he helped them...
beat Bruce Grobbelaar
Bruce Grobbelaar
Bruce David Grobbelaar is a former football goalkeeper and manager.He played for a number of clubs in a career which spanned for more than 20 years at professional level, most notably Liverpool during their dominant period in the 1980s and early 1990s.-Early years:In his teenage years, Grobbelaar...
only to hit the post. The first leg was "marred by repeated fouling by the Romanians".
Liverpool secured a great advantage early on in the return leg when striker Ian Rush scored an away goal (and his one hundredth goal for Liverpool) in the eleventh minute, leaving the Romanian champions needing three goals to win the tie thanks to the away goals rule
Away goals rule
The away goals rule is a method of breaking ties in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. By the away goals rule, the team that has scored more goals "away from home" will win if scores are otherwise equal...
. Bucharest striker Costel Orac
Costel Orac
Costel Orac is a Romanian retired football player and currently coach of Liga II team FC Botoşani.-International goals:-External links:*...
scored in the thirty-ninth minute, but the tie was effectivley killed off in the eighty-fourth minute when Rush scored a second goal. After the match Joe Fagan commented: "I'm proud of the way my players helped and sustained each other when things might have gone wrong. They didn't seem to have any nerves."
The matches between the two teams are chiefly remembered for being highly physical in nature. The first leg at Anfield was described by Ian Rush in 2008 as follows: "Nothing prepared us for the way they applied themselves at Anfield. The Dinamo players hacked and kicked at us from start to finish, so much so we seemed to spend most of the game leaping in the air to avoid late or over-the-top tackles. I was punched, elbowed and spat at so many times that at the end of the game my shirt was covered in spit".
The physical and aggressive nature of the Anfield encounter reached a peak in the seventieth minute, when the Liverpool midfield player and captain Graeme Souness knocked out in an off the ball
Off the ball
Off the ball is a term used in football in the UK, usually associated with a players movement when not in possession of the football...
incident his Bucharest counterpart Lică Movilă, breaking the Romanian's jaw in two places. There are conflicting accounts of events leading up to the altercation.
Of the incident Alan Kennedy
Alan Kennedy
Alan Phillip Kennedy is a former footballer who played for Liverpool during their halcyon days in the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a knack of scoring in major cup finals....
wrote in his autobiography in 2005: "As this guy turned away to play a one-two, Graeme turned right into him and caught him with a beautiful right cross, smack on the jaw. It pole-axed the guy. He went down flat but the play went on. The referee didn't see it. No one really saw it. That was the end of Movilă, who was stretchered off with a broken jaw". In 2010 Kenny Dalglish wrote: "As the clock hit 70 minutes, Graeme hit Movilă. The ball was going out for a throw-in, everyone was looking out wide, so Graeme just punched Movila. The Romanian never saw it coming and the referee and linesmen certainly never saw it. I understand that Movila has since said his team-mates initially thought he was lying on the ground play-acting". Rush described the incident as follows: "Everyone seemed to be engaged in, quite literally, a running battle with their opposite number, no-one more so than Graeme with Movilă. Their heated exchanges boiled over on several occasions and, eventually, exploded. Graeme challenged Movilă for the ball, there was a tussle, which ended with Graeme winning the ball and playing it forward. As Graeme began to move forward Movilă had a go. Through the corner of his eye Graeme saw it coming and instinctively ducked, but the blow caught him on the temple. Movilă had picked on the wrong guy. Graeme swung around and let him have a haymaker. Movilă immediately hit the ground like a bag of spanners. We were mounting an attack so neither the referee or the linesman saw the incident, which was just as well. When play was eventually stopped, Movilă still hadn't moved. He was taken from the field and treated by medics, who discovered that his jaw was broken".
In an interview in 2009, Souness himself described the episode as follows: "Occasionally I'd get a man marker in matches – if it wasn't Kenny [Dalglish] being marked, it would be me instead. This particular guy was following me everywhere on the pitch, pulling my shirt and I just got frustrated. We were winning 1-0 at the time, attacking the Kop end, and he was tugging on my shirt as I was running into the area, so I did a foolish thing – I swung round and punched him. The referee didn't see it and I got away with it." The incident has drawn strong criticism from Graham Spiers
Graham Spiers
Graham Spiers is a Scottish sports journalist who writes for the Scottish edition of The Times newspaper. He has won Scotland's Sports Journalist of the Year award four times....
, who in September 2002 described Movilă as "the most overlooked of all Souness's victims", and in November 2002 Spiers wrote, "Lica Movila (Dinamo Bucharest). The most overlooked of all the Souness hatchet-jobs. In the semi-final of the 1983 European Cup, and behind the referee's back, Souness actually broke Movila's jaw in two places before the Romanian was carted from the field in agony". In 2011, Henry Winter
Henry Winter
Henry Winter is an English sports journalist, currently football correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.The younger brother of Muslim scholar and academic Timothy Winter, Henry attended Westminster School and Edinburgh University.After graduation, he spent a year producing a magazine on sport in...
described Souness's verbal evisceration (as a pundit) of Carlos Tévez
Carlos Tévez
Carlos Alberto Tévez is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for English club Manchester City...
as "doing to Tévez what he did to a Dinamo Bucharest player in the 1984 European Cup semi-final".
Alan Hansen
Alan David Hansen is a Scottish former football player and BBC television football pundit. He played as a central defender for Partick Thistle, Liverpool and Scotland...
wrote in his autobiography, "On our arrival in Romania, even the soldiers at the airport had no compunction about drawing his attention to it [the Movilă incident], with gestures that indicated that Graeme could expect to leave the country on a stretcher". One journalist has written that Souness had to "run a gauntlet of hate" in the Romanian capital.
Rush described the second leg as "enough to make your blood curdle", Hansen has stated that it was "the most hostile atmosphere any of us had ever known", while Dalglish wrote, "I was well aware that open warfare had been declared by Dinamo, and the 60,000 crammed into the 23 August Stadium screamed for Movilă to be avenged. From the first whistle, Dinamo players took it in turns on Graeme. One Romanian tried to top him, another caught him so hard that his dented shinpads were visible through ripped socks". In 2009, Souness described events on the pitch during the second leg as follows:
"In the return game in Romania, there was a lot of publicity about how unhappy Dinamo were with me. There were 60,000 people in the stadium and all the banners were about what they thought should happen to me. However, I think I played one of my best games ever for Liverpool that night. I remember as we pulled up to the stadium, the guards were putting their fingers up to their eyes and pretending to pull them out. It's fair to say there was a lot of anger directed at me that night. I remember lining up in the centre circle and one of their midfield players, who was quite an aggressive guy, pointed at me and motioned as if to say, 'It's you and I tonight.' So I put my thumb up to him and said, 'Yeah okay, I'm looking forward to it.' We won 2–1 on the night, but I think the worst thing we could have done was get that second goal because after that, three or four of their players must have thought to themselves, 'We're going out, but let's see if we can nail him.' However, I was a vastly experienced player at the time. I was 30-years-old, and I managed to avoid all the challenges that came my way".
The Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
The Liverpool Echo is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Saturday, and is Liverpool's evening newspaper while its sister paper, the Liverpool Daily Post, is the morning paper...
wrote in 2009, "Unfazed by it all, Souness relished the abuse and let his feet do the talking, this time with a man-of-the-match display to help Liverpool win 2–1 and reach the final", while The Official Liverpool FC Illustrated History records that, "By full time his [Souness's] socks were torn to shreds, his shin pads split, and his legs bruised from top to bottom". In 2011, a group of Liverpool supporters reminiscing on the club's official website
LFC TV
LFC TV is the dedicated official channel for English football club Liverpool Football Club which launched on 20 September 2007...
about the 1983–84 European campaign described the backs of Souness's socks at the final whistle as being "in ribbons".
The club's official website in 2010 wrote, "with every boo, whistle and jeer, the Reds skipper grew in stature and orchestrated proceedings as a place in the final was memorably secured".