The ‘Hero of Seville’ dies
Romanian football is in mourning, after the death of one of its heroes: the former goalkeeper Helmut Duckadam.
Bogdan Matei, 03.12.2024, 13:50
The legendary football goalkeeper Helmut Duckadam, winner of the European Champions Cup in 1986 with Steaua Bucharest, died at the age of 65, the Romanian sports press announces. He has faced several health problems in recent years and in September 2024 he underwent open heart surgery. Born on April 1, 1959, in Semlac, Arad, in a family of Swabians (ethnic Germans from western Romania), Duckadam made his debut in 1978 in Division A, with the county’s flagship team, UTA. After four seasons, he was transferred to Steaua Bucharest, a departmental club, patronized by the Defense Ministry, according to a Soviet model followed at the time by all the countries behind the former Iron Curtain.
Duckadam was nicknamed the “Hero of Seville” after, on May 7, 1986, in the final of the European Champions Cup with FC Barcelona, he saved all four of Barcelona’s penalty kicks as Steaua won the shootout 2-0, after the final finished 0-0 after extra time. In the shootout, Marius Lăcătuș and Gavrilă Balint scored for the Romanian champions. With a team made up exclusively of Romanian footballers, Steaua Bucharest was the first team from a communist country to win the most important continental interclub football trophy. Other footballers in that team that achieved that unique performance in the history of Romanian football and who have passed away in the meantime are the midfielder Lucian Bălan and the defender Ilie Bărbulescu. Duckadam’s performance was registered in the Book of Records. But, barely reaching the heights of glory, health problems forced him to give up professional football for good at only 27 years old. Three years after the final in Seville, in 1989, Duckadam returned to the field, for the last two seasons, at division B Vagonul Arad. All in all, he has 133 participations in Division A, 13 in the Romanian Cup and 9 in the European Champions Cup. His record includes two national champion titles, one continental champion and a Romanian Cup title.
There is life after football, and Duckadam joined the Border Police in his hometown of Semlac. He was a major in the Police, from where he retired due to illness. In 2003, the former goalkeeper won the Visa Lottery, receiving the right to legally emigrate to the United States, but he shortly returned home. For a decade, Duckadam held the position of image president at the FCSB club in Bucharest. He was declared an honorary citizen of Bucharest, and the Presidency of Romania awarded him the “Sports Merit” Order. In recent years, Helmut Duckadam had become a sports analyst at a specialized channel in Bucharest. In the shows, he was always warm, chatty, with a good dose of humor, he preferred praise to criticism, never got angry and was incapable of offending anyone. At the news of the death of this gentle giant, his colleagues said, together with the entire Romanian football world: Thank you, Helmut! (LS)
