Maccarone Again the Middlesbrough Miracle Man

There was an explosion on Teesside last night but it was one of the sweetest sounds Middlesbrough and its surrounds have ever heard. It came in the 89th minute as Massimo Maccarone, reprising a role from the previous round against Basle, dipped his head to meet a Stewart Downing cross and in that moment a 3-0 deficit had been overhauled once again.

Middlesbrough - self-proclaimed "small town in Europe" - are in the Uefa Cup final. Eindhoven will host half of Teesside on Wednesday week. For Steve McClaren it was a personal triumph on a troubling day and at its end he was entitled to say: beat that, Big Phil.

It will be some time before Boro or McClaren are again labeled boring. One of the most remarkable aspects of their comeback in the quarter-final against Basle was that it felt unique. Twenty days later, in even worse circumstances, they proved it was repeatable. Boro had trailed 2-0 from the first leg against Basle, then fell three goals behind with 67 minutes left. Last night they trailed 1-0 from the first leg then went 3-0 down on aggregate with 66 minutes left.

But Steaua Bucharest are better than Basle and more significantly in the second leg kept 11 men on the park. Basle did not, so this is much better, much more impressive and ultimately historic. It is a brave man who says Boro will not win in Eindhoven. Seville are the opposition.

It was a night when the senses were battered. The Riverside was full for the first time in 16 months and the atmosphere was electric. By the end it had sparked and fused as the ground erupted time and again during a second half when Boro conjured the sort of inner belief that even the players must have been shocked by.

McClaren, so often dour, so often negative in his tactics, has now twice orchestrated a sensation. Only if he had named the kitchen sink as one of the substitutes could he have done more. Having lost his goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, as well as the FA Cup semi-final to West Ham on Sunday, he saw the stand-in Brad Jones spill the ball twice in the first 24 minutes to let Nicolae Dica and Dorin Goian put Steaua into an apparently unassailable lead. Having lost out to Luiz Felipe Scolari as England manager, McClaren must have been thinking Sweet FA.

But he reacted to the situation by withdrawing his captain Gareth Southgate, who had damaged a hamstring, and replacing him with Maccarone. The fightback started eight minutes later when Maccarone received a pass from Mark Viduka and drilled it diagonally past Carlos Fernandes. Steaua's Portuguese keeper is unconventional but he made two saves from Viduka before half-time that should have been defining.

Viduka, recalled after injury, was denied again by Fernandes in the 53rd minute but Boro were now camped in the Bucharest half and playing urgent but not panicked football. They also had the memory of three goals in the last 33 minutes against Basle. On 55 minutes Aiyegbeni Yakubu was introduced and the club sponsored by a gambling company were taking the last throw. Yakubu's speed unsettled Steaua further but it was Downing, in front of Sven-Goran Eriksson, who turned the tie.

In the 65th minute a Downing curler was met by Viduka, rising above everyone, and 3-0 was now 3-2. Eight minutes after that and Chris Riggott, responsible for that last-minute waste against West Ham, slid in to meet a fierce low center from Downing. It was 3-3 and all bets were off. Steaua could not get out of their own half but they managed to escape for the next 16 minutes. Then, as injury-time was being added, Downing took the ball on the left once more. Again the young winger's cross was inviting and again Maccarone came up with the vital contact.

The Riverside exploded joyously but there was still time for fear. Steaua burst forward and another substitute, Ugo Ehiogu, made an enormous block. Twenty years after liquidation, as Steaua were winning the European Cup, Middlesbrough had again awoken the dead. Viva Boro.