Aberdeen v FCSB: Dons fight back from two down to draw 2-2 in first leg

Aberdeen fought back from two goals down to draw with ten man FCSB at Pittodrie in the first leg of their Europa League play-off tie.

They will now head over to Bucharest for next week’s decisive second leg with a 2-2 aggregate score as they look to finish the job in the Romanian capital.

The visitors took the lead on the with a goal from Daniel Birligea against the run of play, before they were reduced to ten men when Juri Cissoti was sent off.

Aberdeen were unable to take advantage of the extra man and found themselves 2-0 down when Darius Olaru doubled FCSB’s lead early in the second half.

However, they got back into the game through a Dante Polvara strike on the hour, and Ester Sokler completed the comeback with a bullet header in the last minute.

Aberdeen started the strongest as they took the game to the Romanian champions in the early stages with Adil Aouchiche coming close and Nicolas Milanovic causing problems for the FCSB defence.

But they were 1-0 down on the half-hour mark when Birligea broke through the defence and calmly finished into the bottom corner.

The home crowd had something to cheer just moments later when Cisotti was shown a red card for a rash challenge right in front of a card-happy referee.

Jimmy Thelin’s men were on top again, but unable to make a breakthrough and remained a goal down going into the break.

FCSB struck again just after the restart when Birligea took advantage of a defensive slip up to charge through on goal and set up Olaru for an easy finish.

Polvara struck to make it 2-1 going into the last 30 minutes when he lashed a shot off the post and in and it was game on at Pittodrie.

Aberdeen now had their tails up, while Bucharest were starting to tire and looking as though they were feeling the effects of being a man down.

Sokler came close to grabbing an equaliser after a good cross from Polvara found him in the box right in front of goal.

The forward would have wanted to do better with the header that failed to hit the target.

But he never made the same mistake when he rose highest to head home the equaliser in the last minute of normal time to make it 2-2.

It was Sokler’s shot that was deflected wide for the corner that would eventually lead to the goal, and it was no less than Aberdeen deserved from a dominant second-half.