• Helmuth Duckadam played only two times for Romania’s senior national team

• He won two Divizia A titles and one Cupa Romaniei with Steaua Bucuresti

• The goalkeeper finished 8th in the 1986 Ballon d’Or voting

Jayanta Oinam Not so long ago, the likes of Gheorghe Hagi, Gheorghe Popescu, Viorel Moldovan, Ilie Dumitrescu, Florin Raducioiu, etc., used to dominate national discourse in Romania for their on-field exploits. They played on the grandest stage, and made the country proud. Then there is a certain Helmuth Duckadam, who played only twice for the Tricolorii, as the national team is known colloquially, yet became a legend. On May 7, 1986, the 1.93m tall goalkeeper from western Romania did the unthinkable in the Spanish city of Seville and earned a place for himself in Romanian folklore. Because, that night, Helmuth Duckadam gave Romania one of its proudest footballing moments — a continental title, now known as the UEFA Champions League. And his feat: saving all four penalties he faced.

Born in Semlac, in western Romania, Duckadam started his career with the local outfit Semlecana Semlac, then joined UTA Arad in 1982. There, the goalkeeper became a regular, opening the doors for the national team selection and of course, a move to Steaua Bucuresti, one of the most dominant teams in the country. After playing four matches for the national Under-21 team, Helmuth Duckadam made his international debut in 1982, the same year he joined Steaua Bucuresti. He would play only two matches for the Tricolorii, but he became a legend in Bucuresti, with the defining moment coming in far-away Spain, in front of a packed Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan crowd. Steaua Bucuresti, who won the 1984-85 Divizia A by two points ahead of Dinamo Bucuresti, entered the European Cup as Romania's representative in UEFA's top club competition even as English champions Everton were banned in the wake of the Heysel Stadium disaster. In the first round, the Romanian league champions defeated Denmark Vejle's 5-2 on aggregate to set up a meeting with Hungarian outfit Budapest Honved. Their second-round tie started with a 1-0 defeat away in Budapest, but Steaua Bucuresti won the return leg 4-1.

After a break of four months, Steaua Bucuresti faced Finnish side Kuusysi for a place in the semi-finals. On March 5, 1986, they played out a goalless in Bucharest. A blip considering how Steaua were utterly dominant in their home fixtures. A fortnight later, Victor Piturca scored the all-important goal in the 86th minute at Helsinki’s iconic Olympic Stadium to settle the quarter-final. That hard-fought win was followed by a 3-1 victory over Anderlecht in April. The Belgian champions won the first leg 1-0, but Steaua Bucuresti, once again, produced a sensational fightback at home with Piturca hitting a brace, one either side of Gavril Balint’s strike on April 16. Then arrived their biggest night, on May 7, against Barcelona, who survived a tense penalty shoot-out against IFK Goteborg of Sweden. Barca lost the first leg 3-0, then fought back to force the shoot-out with Pichi Alonso scoring a hat-trick at Camp Nou, with a reported 120,000 in attendance. The gathering at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for the final was not close to that number, but Emeric Ienei's Steaua Bucuresti were effectively playing an away game. And by all accounts, they were the underdogs against Terry Venables’s Barcelona, who eliminated defending champions Juventus in the quarters.

But what followed was 120 minutes of a goalless slugfest with Steaua producing a tactical masterpiece against the overwhelming favourites with the captain and defensive lynchpin Stefan Iovan leading from the front. And just behind the defensive line which also featured Adrian Bumbescu, Ilie Barbulescu and Miodrag Belodedici, goalkeeper Helmuth Duckadam showed his class. In the shootout, Steaua missed their first two penalties by Mihail Majearu and Laszlo Boloni, but they still won it 2-0 with Marius Lacatus and Gabi Balint beating Javier Urruticoechea while in each turnover, Duckadam denied Barcelona – saving all four kicks from Jose Ramon Alexanko, Angel Pedraza, Pichi Alonso and Marcos Alonso. “I just put myself in the penalty taker’s shoes,” Duckadam told UEFA.com in 2012. “It was a game of logic. After I saved the first penalty from Alexanko, I put myself in the penalty taker’s position, thinking: ‘If the goalkeeper had saved a penalty to the right, what would I do now?’ The goalkeeper would normally change to the left, so I went to the right. And that was best seen on the third penalty, when I was 100% sure that Pichi Alonso would aim to the right as well, because it was logical that after two saves by the goalkeeper on one side, on the third he would try the other side – so he aimed at the same spot.” Romania, for all its football talents, is yet to win a major international tournament. But this win was a joyous occasion for the country.

“When we returned home the next day, more than 15,000 people were waiting for us at Otopeni airport,” added Duckadam. “Many people had walked a long way to wait for us and see us. Leaving the airport, there were tens of thousands of people who applauded us until we arrived at the stadium. It was a fantastic atmosphere — something that you only experience once in a lifetime, or never.” Thanks to his Seville exploits, Helmuth Duckadam finished a creditable eighth in the 1986 Ballon d’Or list. But sadly, soon after the European Cup final, he took a sabbatical and later it was revealed that he was recuperating from an injury. He returned to action after three years, and retired in 1991, at second division Vagonul Arad. During his four-year spell at Steaua Bucuresti, he also won two league titles and one Cupa Romaniei.