Gheorghe Viscreanu

Club career Viscreanu was born on 19 August 1961 in Sărata, Bacău, Romania. He began playing junior-level football at LPEF Bacău, afterwards moving to SC Bacău and then to Luceafărul București. In the summer of 1981, he went to play for Steaua București where he was wanted by one of his former coaches from Bacău, Traian Ionescu. The Red Dogs reached the 1989 Cupa României final, but he did not play in the 1–0 loss to rivals Steaua. He also played two matches in the 1988–89 European Cup Winners' Cup, a 3–0 win over Kuusysi Lahti and a 1–1 draw against Dundee United, as the team reached the quarter-finals. On 20 June 1989 he made his last Divizia A appearance in Dinamo's 0–0 draw against his former side, SC Bacău, totaling 190 games with 16 goals in the competition. In 1989, Viscreanu defected to Spain, signing with Rayo Vallecano.

International career Viscreanu was part of Romania's under-18 national team that participated in the 1980 European Under-18 Championship. Viscreanu appeared in two games, a 1–1 draw against Brazil and a 1–0 win over South Korea, helping the team finish the tournament in third position, winning the bronze medal.

Defections from Communist Romania Viscreanu is the only footballer who managed to defect twice from Romania's communist regime, where defection was illegal at the time.

His first defection was in Australia during the 1981 World Youth Championship. He played in the first two group stage games and after the second match, a Romanian of Hungarian descent who was settled in Australia asked him if he wanted to stay in the country. One night, Viscreanu managed to escape from the hotel and got into a car parked in front of the door. His helpers brought him to their home and took care of him by buying him food and clothes. The next day all the Australian newspapers headlined his escape and he was invited to appear daily on a reality show on a TV station owned by Rupert Murdoch. However, after ten days he and his lawyer were called to the police station, where he found out he was deported to Romania. In 2019, in Barcelona, he met the lawyer who represented him in 1981. He then learned that his deportation was due to a secret agreement between dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and Australia. This agreement allowed Romania to participate in the tournament, but stipulated that if any team member absconded, Australia was obligated to extradite them to Romania. After he came back to the country, for about seven years he was constantly harassed by Securitate officers who followed him everywhere he went and would sometimes enter his house when he was away. They also threatened him that if they caught him planning to defect they would throw him in jail, he was not even allowed to leave Bacău.

Viscreanu's second defection was in 1989 while he was playing for Dinamo București in a friendly tournament held in Madrid, Spain. Together with teammate Marcel Sabou, he sneaked out of the hotel and went to the airport. They bought tickets to Frankfurt where Sabou mentioned a friend who could assist 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 in Madrid, they found out that their visa for Spain 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. They signed three-year contracts with Rayo, but did not play in the first one due to a rule at the time that mandated a one-year suspension for footballers defecting from the communist bloc before they could play again. Viscreanu and Sabou made an agreement that they would not sign a contract unless the other also signed, but Sabou did not respect this pact as he signed with Real Madrid Castilla without considering Viscreanu's situation, a decision that shattered their friendship.

Honours Dinamo București Cupa României runner-up: 1988–89