Dan Coe

Romanian footballer

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Daniel Coe (8 September 1941 – 19 October 1981) was a Romanian football defender. He was part of the Romanian team that reached quarterfinals at the 1964 Summer Olympics, and later participated at the 1970 World Cup. He remained with Rapid for ten seasons, being for a while the team's captain, winning the league title in the 1966–67 season when coach Valentin Stănescu used him in 26 matches. In the following season he played four games in the 1967–68 European Cup, helping The Railwaymen eliminate Trakia Plovdiv and advance to the following round where they were eliminated by Juventus. He also appeared in four matches in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup and won two Balkans Cup with Rapid. After two years in which he played 38 games and scored 8 goals in the Belgian First Division, he came back to Romania, playing for Divizia B club, FC Galați, helping the club earn promotion to Divizia A, where in the following season on 8 December 1974 he made his last appearance in the competition in a 6–0 loss in front of Universitatea Craiova, having a total of 214 Divizia A matches played with 12 goals scored. He played 6 games in which he scored one goal in a 3–1 away loss against Czechoslovakia at the 1966 World Cup qualifiers and made three appearances at the Euro 1968 qualifiers. Dan Coe played his last game for the national team on 16 May 1971 in a 1–0 loss against Czechoslovakia at the Euro 1972 qualifiers.

Scores and results list Romania's goal tally first. "Score" column indicates the score after each Dan Coe goal.

After he ended his playing career, he obtained permission from the communist regime to go on a trip in Belgium, but after he arrived there he settled in Cologne, West Germany as a political refugee. Shortly after an interview on Radio Free Europe in which he criticized Romania's communist regime, Coe was found dead in his apartment on 19 October 1981. His wife and his daughter found him hanged by the door handle with a rope around his neck and with his knees close to his mouth. The criminologist that investigated the case told them that he had never seen someone hang himself in such a way, therefore he recorded it as a suspicious death and it was subsequently believed that he was killed at the behest of the Romanian Securitate, but this has never been proven, his friend and fellow Romanian political refugee, Nora Nagy saying years later to the press:"I don't remember what Dan said at Free Europe. Anyway, once I got here I didn't pay that much attention to the station's broadcasts, but Dan was outspoken and always spoke his mind. However, I noticed one thing. After the collaboration with Free Europe began, all sorts of dubious characters began to appear around him. I suspected many of them to have connections with the Securitate".