Beitar Jerusalem's travelling support got an unusually warm welcome on arrival in Bucharest this week: a printed note, in Hebrew, from hotel management asking politely for good behaviour rather than the usual generic house rules.
The Radisson Blu, where hundreds of Beitar fans are staying ahead of Thursday's Conference League second qualifying round return leg against AEK Larnaca, greeted guests with the line: "Dear Beitar supporters, we are happy to host you again with us. Please honour us with basic procedures," ONE reports.
Because Beitar cannot stage European fixtures at home in Israel, the club is again hosting a continental tie on Romanian soil, this time at Stadionul Ilie Oană in Ploiești, roughly an hour's drive from the capital, with kick-off set for 20:30 on Thursday.
Beitar arrive with the tie firmly in their favour. They won the first leg in Larnaca 1-0 last week, Brayan Carabali settling it with a 77th-minute free-kick after AEK defender Mike van der Hoorn was sent off, according to ESPN's match report.
More than 3,000 Beitar supporters are expected to make the trip to Romania for the second leg, ONE has reported separately, underlining how the club's away-from-home "home" games have become a mass pilgrimage for its fan base.
The Radisson Blu's note laid out a fairly standard set of expectations for a large group booking: no noise from fans between midnight and 5am, no flags hung from windows, no outside food brought into the lobby, no smoking or drug use in rooms, no stickers on the walls, and no pyrotechnics anywhere on hotel grounds.
It closed on a notably friendly note, signing off with: "We love and wish success to Beitar and the State of Israel," per ONE's report.
The tone stands in contrast to the mood around the first leg, when Romanian police issued fans a formal warning that using pyrotechnic devices is illegal under Romanian law and can lead to arrest, Ynet reported ahead of that trip.
For a club now well used to shuttling its biggest European nights between Cyprus, Serbia and Romania, a hotel simply asking nicely counts as a good day.
