When Celtic cruised past St Johnstone on Saturday they succeeded in breaking their own British domestic record of 62 unbeaten games, which had stood for a century. It was a fitting venue to break that 100-year-old record as their last defeat to Scottish opposition had come at McDiarmid Park on 11 May 2016. Brendan Rodgers’ side have been rightly lauded for an outstanding achievement – amid the customary carping about the weakness of Scottish football – but Celtic still have a way to go if they want to emulate the feats of the Steaua Bucharest, whose unbeaten run stands at a scarcely credible 119 games, composed of 104 league and 15 cup matches.

Steaua Bucharest did not suffer a single defeat in domestic football and between 1985 and 1989 they racked up five successive league titles and four Romanian cups. Their unblemished league record for the three full seasons from 1986-87 to 1988-89 stands at 102 matches played with 86 wins and 16 draws. Over this period they scored 322 goals at an average of just over three per match and conceded only 63. Although their 1986 European Cup win was undoubtedly the pinnacle, their 1988-89 league campaign was the most impressive of all three. In winning 31 of their 34 games, they secured a 91% win ratio and an impressive tally of 121 goals for and only 28 against.

Steaua’s utter domination of Romanian football began in earnest in 1986 under the legendary coach Emerich Jenei. Jenei was in his third spell at the club, having started as an assistant back in 1972 before being promoted to head coach in 1974, and then coming back in 1982 before being axed again two years later. On his return to the club just a few months after his latest dismissal it was certainly a case of third time lucky for both Jenei and Steaua.

During the late 1980s the country was still suffering under the ruthless grip of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu so Steaua’s impressive domestic dominance was largely unnoticed outside Romania. They only drew the attention of the wider football world when they became the first Eastern European club to win the European Cup.

Jenei placed a particular emphasis on the importance of pace, earning his team the nickname “the speedies”. “In training, we did one-touch football,” Jenei said. “Only when the boys lost their focus, because it’s very difficult to keep that up, did I accept two-touch football.” Unusually, he was always happy to announce his line-ups days, rather than hours, before the match. Most managers felt it was important to keep the composition of their team to themselves until the very last moment but Jenei was focused on keeping his players relaxed and informed. “It doesn’t make sense to keep the players tense up to the eve of a game,” he said. “If they are tense, other problems might arise and who knows what might happen.”

Aside from his vast experience and expertise, Jenei also had an outstanding crop of players. Uncompromising defenders such as Adrian Bumbescu and Stefan Iovan provided the foundations for battle-hardened midfielders such as Tudorel Stoica. Marius Lacatus, Victor Piturca and Gavril Balint provided the goals. The core of this team went on to form the basis of Romania’s team in the 1990 World Cup under Jenei. This group, along with Georghe Hagi and his brother-in-law Georghe Popescu – developed into Romania’s so-called golden generation.

The Steaua Bucharest team that beat Barcelona in the 1986 European Cup final. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images

The crowning glory of Jenei’s club reign was beating Terry Venables’ Barcelona in the 1986 European Cup final in Seville. The odds were heavily stacked against Steaua. They were the first Romanian side to play in a major European final; their regular captain, Stoica, was suspended; Barcelona fans dominated the stadium; and, while Venables could call on an expensively assembled galaxy of stars, every member of the Steaua squad was Romanian and the majority of them had been developed by the club.

Steaua may have been inexperienced but Jenei was tactically astute. He managed to stifle the opposition and grind them down in a goalless stalemate. Perhaps the clearest measure of how he outwitted Venables was in their respective use of the two permitted substitutions. Jenei’s most eye-catching switch was when he brought on his 36-year-old assistant manager Anghel Iordanescu to bring a calm authority to a wilting team.

As Steaua became more composed, Barcelona became increasingly desperate. Scottish forward Steve Archibald, who was starved of service, cut a frustrated figure until he was replaced midway through extra time. But his frustration was nothing compared to that of German midfielder Bernd Schuster, who stormed off the pitch after being substituted and reportedly left the stadium before the game had even finished. Schuster was branded a disgrace by both Venables and club president Josep Lluís Núñez, leading him to being frozen out of the team the following season.

Schuster’s hasty exit meant he missed the penalty shootout, which was probably just as well. His Barcelona team-mates contrived to miss all four of their penalties, becoming the only European Cup finalists who have not scored any of their spot kicks in a shootout. Steaua keeper Helmuth Duckadum was the hero, guessing correctly for each of Barcelona’s kicks and pulling off save after save to give the Romanians a 2-0 win in the shootout.

Jenei left Steaua to become Romania manager after his triumph in Seville but the club did not suffer in his absence, continuing to flourish at both home and abroad under Jenei’s former right-hand man, Iordanescu. Winning the double in each of his first three seasons, he also led Steaua to European Super Cup triumph over Dynamo Kiev in 1987, when a wickedly deflected free-kick proved to be the only goal of the game.

Gheorghe Hagi in action for Romania at the 1994 World Cup. Photograph: Mark Leech/Getty Images

At that point attention shifted from the coach to a player, Hagi. Originally only contracted for that single Super Cup game, he soon became the talisman for both Steaua and the national team. Hagi’s four goals led Steaua to the 1988 European Cup semi-finals, where they lost out to Benfica. The following year Hagi scored six more goals in the European Cup as Steaua reached the final; there was no shame in losing 4-0 to Arrigo Sacchi’s powerful Milan team. To appear in two European Cup finals in the space of four years was an extraordinary achievement considering that only two other Eastern European clubs have done so before or since – 1966 beaten finalists Partizan Belgrade and Red Star Belgrade, who beat Marseille in another penalty shootout in 1991.

It was no surprise that Hagi left Steaua for pastures new after starring at the 1990 World Cup. Indeed, after Ceausescu’s regime was overthrown there was a steady exodus of Romanians to western clubs, including Dan Petrescu, who had spells at Sheffield Wednesday and Chelsea, and Ilie Dumitrescu at Tottenham. Allied with the increasing polarisation of power towards the elite European clubs, Steaua have not progressed beyond the group stages of Europe’s premier competition since 1990. The great days of the late 1980s under Jenei and Iordanescu deserve greater recognition, as they will never be repeated – and Celtic will have to go some before they get anywhere near to Steaua’s achievements.

• This article is from the author of The Agony and the Ecstasy

• Follow Richard Foster on Twitter