Football Legends Stuck Behind the Iron Curtain

Football is not only the most popular sport in the entire world but it’s also a global phenomenon that can’t be stopped by borders, regimes, and policies. It’s the national sport of England, Haiti, and Israel, it’s one of the most-played sports in Ireland, it’s played by teams big and small everywhere from New Zealand to New York – its popularity is unbroken across all continents, age groups, and genders. Even the most oppressive countries have (and had) football teams – North Korea beat Italy at the 1996 World Cup, and made it to the Group Stage in 2010. No doubt, many North Korean players would already be signed by teams across Europe if it wasn’t for the iron grip the country’s government has on its population.

The same applied to Romanian footballers before 1989 – there were many amazing players that every team would have been glad to sign but who had no chance to show their worth at bigger teams in the rest of the world. Unless they defected, of course – but they didn’t, either because of their status at home or because of the fear of the consequences both for them and their families.

Steaua Bucuresti was the “flagship” Romanian football team for ages. Its players were the best of the best, often “collected” from their local teams to play in the capital. In the mid-1980s, the club’s managers built a truly exceptional team, good enough to take the 1986 European Cup home. The Bucharest team had great players like László Bölöni, twice named Romanian Footballer of the Year, Gabi Balint, Victor Pițurcă, one of the team’s top goalscorers in its history, Marius Lăcătuș, the most successful player the team ever had, whose name the team’s supporters still shout during the team’s home games, and Helmuth Duckadam, one of the best goalkeepers ever. The team played its way through the entire 1986 European Cup like a fish through water, winning match after match, beating teams like Anderlecht, and Budapest Honvéd (Hungarian football was much better at the time, too), finally facing off against Barcelona in the finals.

After playing for a full 120 minutes, the match was goalless – this has never happened before in the history of the European Cup. It was up to the penalties to decide the result of the match – four penalties each, as the rules say. Lăcătuș and Balint capitalized on their chance, Majearu and Bölöni didn’t. Duckadam, in turn, performed a miracle: he saved all four penalty shots, earning the nickname “the Hero of Seville” in the process. This was the first of only two European Cup finals won by an Eastern European team, and the first and only European Cup win for Steaua.

The majority of Steaua’s “dream team” were in their prime at the time of this historic victory. Unfortunately, by the time their home country earned its freedom, they were already past their prime – many of them were signed by major international teams but none of them played for long afterwards. Most of them didn’t leave football for good: Bölöni is currently a manager at Royal Antwerp, Balint has a long and successful managerial career behind him, Pițurcă is a successful coach at his first youth team, Lăcătuș returned to Steaua after a brief stint with Fiorentina and Real Oviedo, and now he’s a coach at one of its supporting clubs, and Duckadam is currently the President of FCSB, the spiritual successor of Steaua Bucuresti.