On the evening of May 6 last year, Dinamo Bucharest midfielder Patrick Ekeng ran out wearing his usual No. 14 shirt into the tattered stadium fans call 'Groapa,' a Romanian word that translates as "hole in the ground."
After coming on as a substitute, in the 70th minute Ekeng collapsed in the center circle. His knees bent before he tumbled backwards. He went into cardiac arrest at 10 p.m. Eastern European time.
Eighty-five minutes later, the 26-year-old Ekeng lay inside the nearby Floreasca Hospital, so close to "the hole" its higher blocks overlook the stadium. By 11:25 p.