“Defend Duckadam! We are finalists! We won the Cup! The European Champions Cup is in Bucharest” was heard on May 7, 1986, in the loudspeakers of the small but robust televisions in communist Romania, as well as in those around the world. Four consecutive penalties saved in a final and Duckadam was teaching us that nothing is impossible. Years later, on a day on December 2, the tall goalkeeper, dressed in green, with a bushy mustache and Beatles locks, gave us another lesson: heroes never die, but people are transient.
Duckadam, the hero of Seville. PHOTO: Profimed
Helmuth Duckadam was born on April 1, 1959, in the Arada commune of Semlac, about where the turtle tail of our map ends. He grew up under the care of his grandmother, because his parents were separated, and his passion for sports tipped the balance of destiny: instead of becoming a miller-labourer, he ended up at the “Gloria” Sports School, and from there, at the juniors of “Bătrănei doamne” UTA Arad. Whether it was football or handball, Duckadam liked to be in the goal: “I was stinky, I didn’t like to run”, he said in an interview for “Weekend Adevărul” in 2012. There he progressed and reached the big team – he defended so well that Mircea Lucescu called him to the national team, and Steaua made him an offer for the big step. He played for the Romanian champions in the period 1982-1986 and they won together, domestically, two titles and a Romanian Cup.
He played hard with his colleagues from Steaua and, even if he did not catch the national team, due to subjective considerations, Duckadam gave another definition to the word “performance”. In 1986, out of 30 teams entered in the most important football competition, only two remained in the final: Steaua and Barcelona. Both red-blue and both with the pride of the “Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan” stadium: the Catalans were returning after 11 years of absence from the firmament of the competition, and ours, as always, with the desire to confirm that the small log overturns the big chariot. May 7, 1986 has already entered the fairy tale books, star players growing up in an evening as others in a year. They fought the kites and the sparrows until they won! And, as any fairy tale needs a hero, in Seville, where the fiesta was already being prepared, Helmuth Duckadam tripped three times and saved all four shots from 11 meters. Years later, modestly and with a sense of humor, the giant with a mustache said: “Everyone told me that a well-executed penalty cannot be missed. Then, so that they were all satisfied, I told them: I defended two, they missed two”. The hero from Sevilla set the performance bar for Romanian football well: “Defend Duckadam! We are finalists! We won the Cup!” is the background chorus that repeats endlessly every year on May 7. The first team from the East to win the European Champions Cup. The only one from Romania.
“… because if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be told”
Two months after crying with joy alongside the Romanians who came to Otopeni Airport or alongside those who flooded the streets of Bucharest in a red-blue wave, Duckadam had an accident. He had run out of luck in Sevilla and his career was over after a slip on the grass at a picnic – it was so serious that the goalkeeper had to be transported by helicopter from Arad to Bucharest, there being a risk of amputation. He put his gloves on and went on with his life, always with an eye to the disappointment of not having continued. Throughout his life, his illnesses continued to accumulate, but between two operations he still appeared on television, as modest and optimistic, always with a kind word at the hour of ananghia. Duckadam needed seven surgeries to live to be 65, the last one in September being open heart.
“Defend Duckadam!” PHOTO: Profimedia
The Romanian state only posthumously offered him the National Order “Star of Romania” in the rank of Knight, and the CSA was blinded by mioritic pride and sent its last farewell through the children’s team led by George Ogăraru. Laid out on the National Arena, far from Ghencea, Duckadam’s coffin was attended one by one by the family – and his 85-year-old mother -, great athletes of the country, the fairytale colleagues of Stela ’86, the entire FCSB team, and the who closed the circle, the supporters.
You feel how your soul dries up when you see that your heroes remain only in the nothingness of the history books. And now, in one voice, to the rhythm of the gallery, for the one who will remain the “Hero of Seville”: WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!
