Marcel Sabou (born 22 August 1965) is a Romanian retired

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played for amongst others, Romanian side

Dinamo București A dynamo is a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator. Dynamo or Dinamo may also refer to: Places * Dinamo (Moscow Metro), a station of the Moscow Metro, Moscow, Russia * Dinamo (Yekaterinburg Metro), a station of the Yekaterinb ...

, Spanish sides

CD Tenerife Club Deportivo Tenerife, S.A.D. is a Spanish football club based in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. Founded in 1912, the club plays in the Segunda División, holding home matches at the Estadio Heliodoro Rodríguez L� ...

Racing Santander Real Racing Club de Santander, S.A.D. (), also known as Racing de Santander () or simply Racing, is a football club based in Santander, Cantabria, Spain, that currently competes in Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league syst ...

and

Sporting de Gijón Real Sporting de Gijón, S.A.D. (), commonly known as Real Sporting, Sporting Gijón, or simply Sporting (although in an international context this can lead to confusion with Sporting Clube de Portugal) is a Spanish football club from Gijón, P ...

, and Portuguese side Desportivo Chaves. In 2013 he was diagnosed with

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

, a disease that causes the death of

neurons A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. ...

controlling

voluntary muscles Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscle ...

Escape from Communist Romania

Sabou is one of the few footballers who managed to escape from Romania's communist regime, at that time defection from the country being illegal. His escape was in 1989 while he was playing for

in a friendly tournament held in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. Together with teammate Gheorghe Viscreanu, he sneaked out of the hotel and went to the airport. They bought tickets to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...

where Sabou said he had a friend who would help them, but when they arrived they didn't have an entrance visa so they were sent back to Madrid. When they got back at the airport from Madrid, they found out that their visa for

was no longer available. A police commissioner from the airport understood their situation and allowed them to stay in the airport for two days and introduced them to some people he knew from

Rayo Vallecano Rayo Vallecano de Madrid, S.A.D. (), often abbreviated to Rayo (Spanish for "thunderbolt"), is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid, in the neighbourhood of Vallecas. Rayo was founded on 29 May 1924, and currently compete in La ...

. They signed three-year contracts with Rayo, but did not play in the first one because in those times there was a rule that every footballer who ran away from the

communist bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

would be suspended for one year before being allowed to play again. Viscreanu and Sabou made an agreement that they would not sign a contract one without the other, but Sabou did not respect this pact as he signed with

Real Madrid Castilla Real Madrid Castilla Club de Fútbol is a List of football clubs in Spain, Spanish football team that plays in Primera Federación, Primera Federación – Group 1 for the 2022–23 Primera Federación, 2022–23 season. It is Real Madrid CF, Rea ...

without thinking of Viscreanu's situation, a fact that ruined their friendship.

Honours

Politehnica Timișoara *

Liga II The Liga 2, most often spelled as Liga II, is the second level of the Romanian football league system. The league changed its name from Divizia B just before the start of the 2006–07 Liga II, 2006–07. It is currently Sponsor (commercial), sp ...

: 1986–87

References

External links

* * 1965 births Living people Footballers from Timișoara Romanian men's footballers Romanian expatriate men's footballers FC Politehnica Timișoara players FC Dinamo București players Real Madrid Castilla footballers CD Tenerife players Racing de Santander players Sporting de Gijón players Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Romanian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Liga I players La Liga players Primeira Liga players G.D. Chaves players Men's association football midfielders Romanian defectors {{Romania-footy-midfielder-stub