Lăcătuş ecstatic after Steaua success

'Happiest day'
Bănel Nicoliţă sealed their place with the only goal of the game on 57 minutes, after the first leg had ended 2-2 in Istanbul, and the former European champions now advance to the group stage for the third season in succession. "This is the happiest day of my life," declared Lăcătuş, who as an iconic player for Steaua collected the European Champion Clubs' Cup, UEFA Super Cup and 10 Romanian titles. "It's my greatest performance as a coach. The emotions I felt on Wednesday made me even happier and prouder."

Romanian renaissance
Looking forward to the competition itself, the 44-year-old admitted his charges can expect a real challenge, despite the current renaissance under way in the Romanian game. For the first time in the country's history, two clubs will take their place in the group stage, with champions CFR 1907 Cluj having qualified automatically. "Steaua are a team who will get better and better results," said Lăcătuş. "We want to win as many points as possible, but let's face it: in the [UEFA] Champions League there are no weak teams."

Nicoliţă praise
Lăcătuş also reserved praise for Wednesday's goalscorer Nicoliţă, who has come in for some severe criticism from the club's fans in recent months: "I am happy about Nicoliţă's comeback. There are and will be many other players who'll go through difficult moments and we'll help them get through them too, just as we did with Nicoliţă."

'We deserve statues'
Club captain Mirel Rădoi was no less thrilled, meanwhile, arguing that he and his team-mates now merit being immortalised. "Taking into consideration the budgets of Romanian clubs compared to the budgets of many of our opponents in European club competitions, I'd say that we pulled off a miracle and deserve to have statues. Now we want to win lots of points and why not even qualify?"

Group-stage draw
Veteran defender Petre Marin added: "Not every team can achieve what we did. Actually, we proved once again that we are Romania's best team, but we also have to praise our fans, who created a fantastic atmosphere." The 34-year-old will now be paying close attention to the group-stage draw, which takes place in Monaco at 18.00CET this evening. "Now we want to qualify, but let's first see who our opponents will be."