Dan Coe


Daniel "Dan" Coe was a Romanian football defender. He was part of the Romanian team that reached quarterfinals at the 1964 Summer Olympics, and later participated in the 1970 World Cup.

Playing career

Coe was born in Bucharest and debuted in Divizia A with Rapid Bucureşti in 1962. He remained with Rapid for eleven seasons, winning the league title in 1967. He then went to play in Belgium.
He was one of several Romanian internationals who ran from the communist regime, to move abroad in the early 1970s. He spent two years in the Jupiler League with Royal Antwerp in Belgium before returning home.
Coe got 41 caps and 2 goals for the Romanian national team between 1963 and 1971. He represented his country at the 1964 Summer Olympics and at the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
His father Duce Coe was also a footballer and captain of Sportul Studențesc.

Retirement

In 1981, he settled in Cologne, West Germany as a political refugee. Shortly after an interview on Radio Free Europe, Coe was found dead in his apartment on 19 October 1981. The paramedics tried everything possible to reanimate him. His wife and his daughter found him legcuffed and handcuffed hanging in his apartment in Cologne. It was subsequently claimed that he was killed at the behest of the Romanian Securitate, but this has never been proved.

Club statistics

SeasonClubCountryAppsGoals
1961–62Rapid Bucureşti60
1962–63Rapid Bucureşti192
1963–64Rapid Bucureşti210
1964–65Rapid Bucureşti242
1965–66Rapid Bucureşti250
1966–67Rapid Bucureşti260
1967–68Rapid Bucureşti170
1968–69Rapid Bucureşti192
1969–70Rapid Bucureşti232
1970–71Rapid Bucureşti221
1971–72Royal Antwerp305
1972–73Royal Antwerp70
1973–74FC Galaţi230
1974–75FC Galaţi123

Honours

Club

Rapid Bucureşti