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Hello Aberdonians - as a fellow Scot, living in Bucharest. I’d like to share what information I can - which I hope may be of use, and indeed make for a smooth and enjoyable trip! If anyone has any questions, about anything related to the City, FCSB, transport, nightlife, do’s and dont’s etc - please feel free to ask. Airport Arrival/Transport in City: There are 2 main options. Cheapest -Train directly outside arrival terminal to Gara De Nord (main train station in the city - and metro is linked from their too) Train is not as frequent (every 40 mins) but only 20 mins to Gara De Nord station and around 6 Ron (like £1.50) Taxi - as soon as you exit the arrivals doors from getting luggage - on the left are ticket machines to get a Taxi number (all machines in English) and then you wait outside the terminal doors (a matter of yards away) and wait for your taxi number to arrive (registration of car is printed on your ticket) These are the AUTHORISED taxi companies and all on a meter (roughly 50/60 Ron (£10/15 to city centre) - DO NOT pay anything more than roughly that - if they ask for a lot more - make a fuss! But less likely if you take a registered taxi! UBER/BOLT - possible, but not allowed to pick up outside terminal - so need to walk to pick up area outside of airport. METRO SYSTEM: It’s a good one! Cheap, reliable and frequent. Best way for getting around the city as traffic is busy in the daytime. Tickets can be bought in all stations and as it’s so cheap - good option is to buy a ‘multi trip’ ticket for around (20 Ron) £5 and gets you 10 trips. NEAREST METRO Stations to Ground (walking distance) Piata Iancului Piata Muncii Accommodation Booking.com/Air BnB etc all available. In my eyes - two options (City Centre) nearest to Old Town - most expensive. Change metro line from Blue to Yellow Or slightly out of main centre but on best link to Ground via metro or taxi, plus near main Train Station (sector 1) - Options directly out of station are Ibis Gara De Nord and Hello Hotel (both main chains and you know what you’re going to get) - simple stuff! Metro to the ground from this area is around 10 mins) (on yellow line) Old Town or (Lipscani) Romanian name for area - is the busiest and most lively - but comes with highest prices and scammers etc! Good honest bar which is British owned is called Mojo - sport on TV, karaoke etc. https://mojomusic.ro/ Option nearest the Train Station is arguably one of the best traditional Pubs in Bucharest - Dubliner Irish Pub. It’s the closest you’ll get to back home, quite a large ex-pat community of Scots too! A few Aberdonian’s working in the oil industry here. Multiple TV screens for sport - bespoke darts room (9 boards) great Irish Breakfast and pub food (cottage pie) Guinness, Kilkenny, Peroni, Ursus and Kozel on draught and then all the other usual spirits, shots etc. https://dubliner.ro/menu/ Piata Victoriei and Gara De Nord nearest metro stations to Dubliner Irish Pub and 10 mins to ground. There’s a lot more could add - but this is for starters - please feel free to ask anything you want! Enjoy your trip and hopefully you’ll be going into it with a nice first leg lead!

Not long in from that, it's good to have a season book again but it would be nice to see us get a goal at some point let alone a win. Falkirk were stodgy and surprisingly fond of falling over too. We weren't awful with 11 men and I think we would have taken it had 11 stayed on the park. Very harsh red on Devlin, just watched it back there. He barely touched him and was focused completely on the ball, if this is how the game is going we would be as well just making it a non contact sport now and getting it over with. The ref was awful in general quite frankly and looked completely out of his depth. I do take some positives though. Firstly we defo seem to be getting a lot better with aerial balls into the box which has been a problem for ages and just improving defensively in general. Knoester coming back in has helped but credit has to go to Jack Milne who is making that RCB position his at the moment. I liked the look of Lazetic, my main first impression was he looks to have good feet and very keen to get involved. That was about it though, everything else on show was varying degrees of disappointing. It's also worth noting we have been limping by at LB where every game played so far someone has been shoehorned into the position. Personally I think this is one of the biggest reasons we are looking a bit impotent going forward as fb's are so key to how we try to attack. Hopefully Gyamfi will return to training over the international window and we now have backup in Frame too so fingers crossed no more Molloy or Devlin at left back. Am I worried? Not yet and 2bh I don't think there's any point in being so as the die is cast and we are very much in a "trust the process" scenario which the chairman has bought into. In the big interview after the cup final he was talking about how Jimmy was hired on the understanding it would be a 3 year 'project' and how not winning the cup would have made sod all difference to his commitment to it. When we appointed Thelin I heard/read multiple Swedish journalists say "you need to give this guy 2 seasons before you see what his teams are all about" and when you dive into the numbers at Elfsborg over Thelins first few seasons you soon see why. They really didn't start putting results together consistently until the last few months of season 2. Season 3 they really took off and were successful until he joined us but for quite a while in those first two seasons it would appear the Elfsbog fans wanted rid in great numbers. My feeling is we are probably going to have to endure some struggles in the first half of this season, especially with the demands of europe though I think the extra games will be good for squad gelling in the bigger picture, but I think/hope we will really kick on in the second half of the season.

Just imagine the redemption ark when we beat Noah.

Must compliment TLG, Rico and Panda for the quality of posting on this page of this thread. I can honestly say that as I've caught up on this this morning I've found my opinion on the matter at hand (European club football and its merits for the Scottish and wider game) changing by post. Each of you have points that I found myself agreeing with, even if in part it contradicted what I'd agreed with in the previous post. Maybe however, it is simply old age catching up on me and making me more senile and unable to remember what I thought a couple of minutes previously

So, our new #9 then!

This is outrageous

What are you talking about? If we've learned anything over the Miovski affair, it's that tweets mean everything.

Hope he gets injured quickly. Dirty cunt. Wonder if he'll be in tears when he eventually leaves Ibrox? As others have said, probably, wouldn't really minded if it was someone like McGrath who just picked up a wage, acted very professionally and worked hard, without any playing to the fans or showing any real affection for the club. Miovski very much gave it the "club has a massive place in my heart" type shite the entire time he was here, and after leaving. If big Ash knows what it means to be a Dandy, then Miovski can't claim anything was lost in translation. It won't be long before he's talking up how great it was to play at Ibrox with the Dons and how he'd dreamed about playing there. Fucking cunt.

There is no comparison between what Snelders did and what the dirty Judas Hun cunt Miovski has now done. They shouldn't be uttered in the same breath.

Pity we never got them during the McInnes years, I'dve paid good money to see the headline "Flood sinks Noah"

Accepting the comments on shite format and the second/third chance it’s still a European competition and potential for some decent ties. We are not big enough to be looking down our noses at any team we face in Europe. Just because a team is from Bosnia or Armenia and maybe in Europe for first time does not mean it won’t be a tough test.

Club need to call out the ref and UEFA. Laws of the game it’s not a handball. Far too close, and arm in a natural position. More importantly though the ref can’t issue a yellow following a VAR review for a routine yellow card offence. Only for simulation if they’ve originally given a pen (dissent) or downgrading a red to a yellow following review. Not sure how it’s possible to happen in the circumstances. Surely someone in the VAR team could have pointed out the error in the CR’s officiating??

Went on walking tour this morning and the guide, spotting the Dons badge, said, "I hope you thrash those motherfuckers"...was impressed with his command of English (he's a Rapid fan, FCSB being the commie team).

Its like the basis of 7 Days by Craig David

last sections of the Buchan way.Easy walking,cyclable the majority,if not all the way.Some dour straight bits,but mostly nice walking 7/10 Ugie water at Longside Badgers sett near Udny station Approaching Achnagatt

IMHO for European, just read football. The ball is well and truly burst unfortunately

Aye, the number of times the ball came to the back post with Jensen hugging the far touchline. It was frustrating. He wasn't great today, but correctly stayed on because the other subs were more justified! He's just a hair too hesitant and misses the opportunity to get beyond his man on most occasions. Was Dorrington injured? He wasn't great either, but not terrible. The sub should have been to either take Molloy off, or take Shinnie on for Dorrington and put Molloy back to his actual role. I think I said elsewhere that Molloy was never a left back, and that's been proven tonight. He was terrible. Had zero clue how to play the role, and can't play with his back to goal. Otherwise, thought the subs were correct and at the right times. Thought it was Yengi's best 45 minutes for the Dons! Just need to keep Polvara benched until he signs the new deal. Overall, they were the more clinical and dangerous team. But for a wild and unnecessary lunge, they might have given us a doing. Their number 9 was especially good, a top player. I think they'll have too much for us over there. We can certainly set up better against them, but I don't think it'll make a huge difference, we're not there yet. We had glimpses of decent play with no end product from the starting front four. I don't think Aouchiche works with Clarkson either. He faded significantly, and Clarkson was/is better. The referee was worse than any Scottish ref I've seen.

"Fuck me and I thought I was old" to quote no-one in particular

Fuck sake, there goes plan A-1

I don't know why it's not been announced, but it's live on BBC Scotland on Thursday. Enjoy the pub.

Scott Burns writing in The Retard saying that we have opened contract extension talks with Polvara who apparently is happy in Aberdeen and didn't feature against Morton on Saturday as he had been sick during the week

Has a very good scoring record though (for his age/position) and very highly rated; the talk is one of the Old Firm are actually tracking him, so would be a bit of a coup to get him ahead of whoever it is. As much as we all love Shayden Morris - the beautiful cup winning bastard he is - I think we've all said we need to upgrade on him if we want to progress and this guy looks the business.

Anything to increase the fee is fine by me.

I'm assuming Utd will be releasing a commemorative DVD before the home leg?

Everytime I log on and see there's no updates on this thread.

*Huntly! I will question the Nicky devlin situation. Very different to Jensen but I wonder who is better suited to the SPL. Devlin was our best player for a number of months last season. He did a job in the cup final on the left, surely a better fit than shinnie as a short term fix if he’s not playing RB.

This could have been written after any one of our final twenty games of last season. That's where the worry is. Equally, you could have written that we were easy to play against, predictable and playing a style that leads to too many errors, whilst exposed in numbers. It was a bottom six performance by a bottom six team. Unless we see quality signings, or a change of approach, then that's where we'll end up. I think you're right about the friendlies, that isn't the issue (although Nielsen, especially, looked like he could have done with a few).

Re-the lack of friendlies, I do see the other side of it. A couple more friendlies may or may not have made the difference v Hearts. But we still would be saying we need a striker, an energetic midfielder, and that we missed a left back. And Yengi might still miss those chances and Knoester & Shinnie still make those mistakes for the goals. We're not going to be a full strength (we hope) until the end of the transfer window anyway. I think a lot of the complaints from Barry Robson used to be he had no time to work on things with the players once the European group games hit, because it was game, recover, travel, game, travel, recover. So, if you play a lot of pre-season friendlies, you have fewer valuable time on the training pitch. So Thelin has obviously prioritised that. And like I said, I don't think we looked unfit, and at times we knocked it about well, and while over the 90 minutes Hearts were better - there's every chance we could have taken something tonight but mistakes did us in. I'm disappointed we lost but I didn't see enough tonight to make me worry too much about the season.

You're too lazy to include the second "o" in too.

Oh the good old days before instant news via the internet. I remember waking up on 1st January 1988 around 3pm with a mother fucker of a headache and hangover and reading of Nicholas signing for us. Didn't really believe it until I went to the shop down the road and there it was in the Daily Record. Think in my time supporting The Dons the only other signing that comes close was the return of King Joey. Gillhaus deserves a mention because he was coming as a Dutch internationalist and European Cup winner although we probably didn't realise just how good he was Going back to Nicholas, I mind standing on the terracing at Easter Road (9th Jan 1988) when he made his debut. Had a wee scuffle with some Leith pricks outside before the game I probably only remember so clearly as it was my turn to drive (so unusually sober for a game back then) and as I stayed in Inverness then and it was a hoor o a journey up the A9 in blizzards. Halcyon days, great memories

There are about a hundred things involved in a transfer, the narrative that we could’ve spent X more to get him earlier is far too simplistic.

A poster said I was living in cloud cuckoo land for suggesting this. Turns out we've paid less than that.

The proof will be in the pudding re the upside but the aim, I would suggest anyway, is to get a team on the park that consistently is greater than the sum of it's parts. What that looks like in terms of results is always going to be evolving based on who we are playing and what state they are in. E.g beating this current celtic side would be less of an achievment than the one that started last season. Say Thelin gets it right and this time next season we are far more of a honed and settled team then that would be the baseline for a Thelin team. The strategy then is to raise the baseline season after season until the club reaches it's natural ceiling and can't really go any further unless there is a major change in circumstances (in our case there's only one thing that could do that as things stand and that is qualifying for the league phase of CL and all the money that brings). Then you see what happens quite frankly, it's sport.... there's so many variables and anything can happen.

Not having the Sporting/Technical Director position filled 18 months after the review of club set up identified the need for one is probably my biggest concern. As you say we seem to focused on the next project to earn us a big sale rather than developing players for long term future of club. Sporting Director should be there to oversee that. Difficult to bring one on now with manager and head of recruitment already in place. Sporting Director should have been first appointment.

Woah, woah, woah there. Let’s not confuse my dislike of Cosgrove now he’s signed for Auckland

Disgusting. I'm contacting my local reform MP to get them sent back to their own country.

No, it is fans that misunderstand players Rico. A club is a way of life to a fan and some fans have an unreasonable expectation that it is the same for players. Football is just their job. There is no loyalty in the game. The guy was only at Pittodrie for five minutes, yet folk have some unrealistic fantasy that because of that he would never sign for our rivals.

So we've got to hope that Bruges take their foot off the gas, Sevco get a couple of consolations and Martin stays for another month. Also, hopefully Samiritans are ready to receive calls from Boyd, McCoist, McCann et al.

So it looks like there was more than an unfounded rumour to the post I made about this on Saturday lunchtime. Even though the source of the story was someone very close to Miovski (Filip Mishov), I really hoped it wasn't happening. I hope and pray it still doesn't but that hope is fading Very much doubt we'll ever see him back in the red of Aberdeen if this goes through. Same treatment as all the others if he goes there and he'd better hope he gets up and running quickly cause I very much doubt the frothing masses in the stands will be prepared to give him time

It's fine, nobody watched that one anyway.

Same one that chalked off McTominay's goal in Spain, and aye tonight he was chronic. Or Shinnie, who came on at left back and was one of the reasons for the improvement late on. I would start Devlin over Jensen in Bucharest though. I'd also agree Sokler should start, he's far better than Yengi in pretty much every aspect of the game. But, I don't think he missed chances because he's not match sharp, he just has that in him which is stopping him from being our starting number nine. I thought Milanovic was excellent in the first half. But, he would drive into good positions and then we rarely had another player in a good spot to take advantage. A lot of that is on Yengi, but also Aouchiche, Palaversa and Keskinen don't have that penalty box instinct. Sokler, to be fair to him, is very good at sensing where the ball is going to come to. We have the personnel to go and win there, even if - as @RicoS321says - overall they're a better team than us (they are the Romanian champions after all). But Thelin has to get the line-up spot on. Would like to see Sokler, Clarkson, Shinnie and Devlin all start over there.

Good luck laddy.

I think more likely Thelin was thinking about who is going to start on Thursday, which is why the five guys that came on are all in contention to start, or at least play a big part in the game. Freshened up the team, but still made sure everyone likely to play on Thursday played some part.

For sure!!! FCSB are a good team in Europe, but have been a touch lacklustre this season. if you get a lead in the first leg, you’ve a really good chance of going through. I’ll be cheering you on, that’s for sure!

The champions league started in '92. Not only did it allow the Hun to extend the imbalance, but it paved the way for McCann to sort out the Tims, comfortable that some sort of return could be made. Overall, the diddy clubs getting a one off windfall is a bad thing. Firstly, because only one or two will get it, and just as many will gamble and fail to get it. Secondly, because it perpetuates the myth that trickle-down works because we can give one example where it once helped a team temporarily. It allows people to say that if the diddy clubs just invested in better players and tried a bit better, or had more belief, then they too could have a chance at regular group stage football. We basically use the current scum arguments on those below us. Most importantly, however, is that nobody is addressing the fact that European group stage income is completely unearned, undeserved and unsporting. It's very clearly a form of sanctioned doping - or cheating, for want of a better expression. The biggest reason that nothing will happen is that everyone involved - both industry and fan - is in complete denial about it. Admitting the problem would go a long way to solving it. That there's not a single journalist willing, or capable, of articulating it is a large part of the problem (I'm not picking on the BBC!). People like me that attend most games are also a large part of the problem.

Unemployed, obviously. Booker prize is for losers. Fuck do they know about fitba?

I'm not only looking at the status quo, and I am looking at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is exactly as I suggested - another tier in Scottish football. There will not be five teams playing regularly in groups, but if there were, it would taper off to being just those few teams who begin to dominate financially. The evidence for this is overwhelming, because it's exactly how the Huns and Tims gained their forty year dominance. The shitey Euro leagues just do exactly the same thing. The early recipients of the windfall use that to get the windfall again and again. It takes time to settle, of course, but within decade you have exactly the same problem. You're basically arguing that the answer to the problem of inequality is more of the same. It's not just in football, obviously, it's very basic trickle-down economics, with evidence in every single walk of life. We've had fifty years of Thatcher/Regan policy worldwide, showing us that inequality increases and that trickle-down economics is nonsense, for very obvious reasons. Of course, this is exactly what UEFA wants. They're not trying to create competition within leagues, so I'm not sure why anyone would think that'd be the goal of this expansion. It's about bringing more clubs into their dominion. Clubs that begin to rely on their funds and will agree to whatever bollocks they come up with next. The very obvious destination is European leagues, which for leagues like ours will mean B teams being shoehorned in (witness the total destruction, ongoing, of the challenge cup, for the sole benefit of the premier league - but mainly the scum). There is no other bigger picture here, what you've argued is a very narrow window that looks at the benefits for between 1-4 teams. Is it better for Aberdeen? Probably. Although I'd argue that it's only better if you're too partisan to see the view from the perspective of other clubs - which is exactly what the Huns and Tims do. I spoke to one of my Tim mates about the abomination that is the Euro leagues last night, and he said it was great because if they're third seed then they have a chance of getting through (in other words, completely ignored the point, and could only see it from how it benefited them). All European prize money should go into a single pot and distributed evenly across the league (with a significant portion going downward). That is the only way that the trite and objectively nonsense saying "a rising tide lifts all boats" could be applied. Not by the endlessly tried and failed methods of the trickle down.

Noticed Liverpool and Crystal Palace both played double header friendlies in pre-season. Liverpool played two games back-to-back v Atletico Bilbao, Palace did the same v Augsburg. Fans only had to pay the price of one ticket. Would love to see us do something like that. Think we had a day when we essentially played two games v Cove and Turriff (?) on the same day, but it'd be nice to give everyone a taste of Pittodrie. The only issue would be if St Johnstone have enough players to field two separate teams.

Squad numbers as everyone else is to lazy to copy and paste.

Any idea why the BBC comment at the final whistle was "Points dropped on day one", rather than "Points saved on day one"? Unless they were talking about Motherwell