Helmut Duckadam played for Steaua Bucharest for four yearsbut his career is summarized in one night, May 7, 1986. That day Barcelona was scheduled to win its first European Cup, but he was not able to score a goal and in the penalty shootout, when Schuster He had already returned by taxi to the hotel after Venables changed it to Moratalla, he met Duckadam.
Lacatus and Balint scored for Steaua and The Romanian goalkeeper stopped the four that the Barça players threw at him. It was the first European Cup won by an Iron Curtain team and also the beginning of the end for Duckadam.
That same summer he suffered phlebitis in his arm, which made him unable to play football.. He never played for Steaua again. The goalkeeper became a hero for his team’s fans, but also for many Real Madrid fans. Someone, after shouting “Oa, oa, oa, Butragueño to La Moncloa” from the Cibeles fountain for the four goals against Denmark in Querétaro, put a ballot with his name written in pen in the general elections that year. .
Legend has it that Ramón Mendoza, then president of Real Madridgrateful for having avoided Barcelona’s first European Cup, he gave him a Mercedes. And that, they say, was the real reason for his injury. Nicu, the son of the dictator Ceaucescu, was the president of Steaua and he demanded that Mercedes while he let the goalkeeper drive a second-hand Dacia. Given Duckadam’s refusal, several members of the Securitate broke the fingers of both his hands, so he was only able to play football a couple of years later and already in a Second Division team.
History can slip into the times of the dark Ceaucescu dictatorship, but It is hardly credible that Mendoza, who smoked on loan because he did not buy tobacco, gave him something more than a hug when I saw him.
Duckadam went through serious financial problems and emigrated to the United States, although it only lasted a year. In recent years he served as honorary president of Steaua. He died at the age of 65 in Bucharest after suffering several health problems.
