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by **67-1161385641** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:43 pm

Hungary legend Puskas dies at 79

Puskas led Hungary's greatest team
Hungary and Real Madrid legend Ferenc Puskas has died at the age of 79.
Puskas, who was in hospital for six years with Alzheimer's disease, died in Budapest at 0600 GMT on Friday after suffering from a fever and pneumonia.

Puskas led Hungary's golden team of the early 1950s, before taking Spanish citizenship and becoming part of Real Madrid's all-conquering team.

Puskas scored 83 goals in 84 games for Hungary from 1945 to 1956 and later played for Spain in the 1962 World Cup.

After leading Hungary to the 1952 Olympic Gold medal, he was part of the Mighty Magyars who became the first overseas team to beat England on home soil in 1953, scoring twice in the 6-3 win at Wembley.

FERENC PUSKAS FACTFILE
Born: 2 April 1927, Budapest, Hungary
Nicknames: The Booming Cannon & The Galloping Major
Clubs: Kispest Honved (354 apps, 357 goals) & Real Madrid (528 apps, 512 goals)
Honours: Hungarian league (5), Spanish league (5), Spanish Cup, European Cup (3), Intercontinental Cup, Olympics

Hungary then rolled England over 7-1 in Budapest and were consequently installed as favourites for the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland.

But injury to Puskas severely hampered the Magyars and they lost in the final to Germany.

Puskas joined Real Madrid and, along with Alfredo di Stefano, was the inspiration behind a string of domestic and European titles.

He scored four goals in Real's 7-3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in a remarkable final at Hampden Park in 1960, and won the European Cup three times with the Madrid side.

In all, he scored 512 goals for Real in 528 matches and in 1962 he took out Spanish citizenship in time to play for his adopted country in the 1962 World Cup.

Puskas retired in 1967, going on to coach clubs in several countries, leading Greek side Panathanaikos to the European Cup final in 1971.

As the last millennium drew to a close, Puskas was voted the 20th century's sixth best player by the International Federation for Football History and Statistics.

--------------------------
RIP.

by **112-1077774096** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:09 pm

by **jkop** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:21 pm

R.I.P Puskas.

by **adamnbarrett** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 6:33 pm

R.I.P. Puskas

YNWA

by **Sabre** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:47 pm

He's a legend here in SPain, but I'm not old enough to have seen the "The golden arrow" playing.

RIP

by **account deleted by request** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:49 pm

He was nicknamed the Galloping Major over here. Way before my time but I have seen clips and he was good.

R.I.P.

by **67-1161385641** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:59 pm

He's the greatest player of all time: had he been English or Brazilian, he would have attracted far more attention and would have received even more accolades.

by **jonnymac1979** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:20 am

Didn't this guy score someting like 500 goals in 520 games or something. Some record that.

Everyone's heard of Puskas, football has lost an icon.

by **67-1161385641** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:45 am

jonnymac1979 wrote:Didn't this guy score someting like 500 goals in 520 games or something. Some record that.

Everyone's heard of Puskas, football has lost an icon.

Kispest Honved (354 apps, 357 goals) & Real Madrid (528 apps, 512 goals) & 83 goals in 84 games for Hungary from 1945 to 1956.

Quite remarkable.

by **Big Niall** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 2:34 pm

It has always bugged me that when people talk about all time greats they assume that football started in the 1960s.

Puskas, Di Stefano and other players from before 1938 deserve to be up there with Pele , Maradonna etc.

Puskas scored a goal a game over a long period of time, which (I think) is slightly more than Pele and he played in a more competitive league (Spain- top of its time). I've never seen him play but his supporters can argue that he was the greatest ever.

by **Judge** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:47 am

by **67-1161385641** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:27 pm

Puskas on life and football

'I will write of my life as a footballer as if it were a love story,' wrote Ferenc Puskas shortly before his death. 'For who shall say that it is not?' Here is Puskas on life and on football

Sunday November 19, 2006
The Observer

Puskas on childhood

I was born in April 1927 in Kispest, which was then on the very outskirts of Budapest... The surrounding streets teemed with kids. Everyone was quite poor and few could buy toys, but football provided us with enormous, cheap fun. Some of my relatives insist that I first kicked a ball when I was nine or 10 months old and only just standing up. Even as a three-year-old I could run well enough to keep up with a game. Football was our passion. My sister Eva often wanted to join us but girls were not allowed to play, so I would send her home to fetch me a slice of bread and dripping. We didn't have a decent pitch to play on, of course, but there were lots of vacant building sites all over Budapest with kids playing football on them. We didn't always have boots so we played barefoot on any sandy patch we could find.'

On the war

I was 12 when war broke out and life got increasingly tough. Everyone was short of even the basic necessities and I remember swapping clothes for things like flour and meat... That was the season I made my debut in the first team, only 16 years old.

On the essence of the Magical Magyars

Even after we had been unbeaten for years, we always gave our best for them, continuing to try to excel; running that bit quicker, jumping that bit higher, striking the ball that much more accurately. It was during the Olympics [Hungary won gold in 1952] that our football first started to flow with real power. It was a prototype of total football; when we attacked, everyone attacked. In defence it was just the same.

On England 3 -6 Hungary in 1953

We were a bit surprised we weren't allowed to train at least once on the Wembley pitch we heard so much about. We went on to the pitch with our shoes on and it seemed very soft and springy. We were allowed to train at QPR's ground, which felt as if it was in the countryside. I would be a liar if I said we were not pretty nervous on the day of the match. We were doing our best to have a laugh and forget about the importance of the game. I was in my kit, hanging about in the corridor, when I saw the England inside-right [Eddie] Taylor, who wasn't very tall. I popped back into the dressing room and said to the others: 'Listen, we're going to be all right, they've got someone even smaller than me.'

I think my favourite goal of all time was that third one - the 'drag back'. I don't really know where that goal came from. The drag back was something I used to do as a kid, but it wasn't something I'd ever practised. It was instinctive. My football wasn't full of fancy tricks. I liked simple things on the pitch, simple solutions, quick easy movements. Everyone loved the goal - it's probably the one I am best remembered for - but the truth is I had to get out of the way quick, otherwise Billy Wright would have really clobbered me.

On the journey home

When we got to Paris, where we had to change to another railway station, the reception was unbelievable. It was almost as if they themselves had won. It was no small thing to put six past England in London. It was a fantastic match and the best team won. And I'll never forget the way everyone we encountered in England hailed the victory without resentment.

On building the Nepstadion

There were staged moments for the press in 1953 when, as players of the national team, we were required to put in a couple of well publicised days' work to show we were good communists.

On the 1954 World Cup final, West Germany 3 - 2 Hungary

I got an equaliser right at the death but that Welsh linesman Griffiths disallowed it for offside, even though the English ref Bill Ling had given it. We were already back in the centre circle by the time he flagged. I'll never forgive him for that. We didn't argue - not on the pitch anyway - and the Germans won. We hung our heads. What could we do? We couldn't beat up the linesman, that's for sure, but I was pretty mad. Supporters joined the chorus of disappointment after the final and I did my best to close my ears to it all, otherwise I would have gone insane. There were lots of rumours and paranoid fantasies: that we'd sold the game for a Mercedes car each and such nonsense. The police and military asked us not to go out for a few days until things calmed down, so we stayed out of sight. Everyone was looking for someone to blame. In the streets, people looked at me as if I had some kind of disease. Some people are idiots, aren't they?

On the Hungarian uprising, rumours of his premature demise during the fighting and a ban from football

We went by coach to Vienna. At the Austrian border, some folks did a double take as the papers had reported me dead. The Honved party left Vienna for Germany, where we played a couple of friendly matches, principally to raise some ready cash. [They went on to tour Brazil, without permission.] After our tour it was a complicated journey back home to Europe and various authorities were dispatched from Budapest to meet with us and a 'trial' was held in Vienna. We were told we all had to come back to Hungary right away to face various punishments, the most severe being reserved for me as captain. I was to be banned from playing football for 18 months. At that stage of my footballing life, almost 30 years old, I felt the ban was a virtual death sentence for my career.

On post-ban interest from Real Madrid

I said: 'I'm too fat, I can't possibly play. I need time to get my weight down. But there I was the very next day in Madrid, the size of a balloon, having a very weird 'conversation' with [Santiago] Bernabeu [the Real Madrid president]. There was no interpreter present. He was rabbiting away in Spanish; me in Hungarian... In the end I threw up my arms and gestured: 'Listen this is all very well but have you looked at me? I am 18 kilos overweight.' Bernabeu replied: 'That's not my problem it's yours.' And that was that. I was a Real Madrid player, if a rather heavy one. Bernabeu gave me $5,000 straight away, which came in very handy. I didn't cost Real Madrid a penny in transfer fees. I was never bought or sold in my career.

On exile

Nobody ever made me feel a foreigner in Madrid and I never felt it necessary to jettison my Hungarian-ness; not that I could... Almost everywhere I went with the Real team, there were always little groups of Hungarians waiting to welcome me [around 100,000 had left the country after the uprising and were living all over Europe]. They identified with me as one who, like them, had been unable to remain after 1956. As the team took to the pitch in various European countries, sometimes I could hear the shout, 'Hat harom' which means six three - a reference to that great game at Wembley in 1953.

It was fantastic to be involved in another golden squad. For a really great team I think genuinely close human relationships are essential. The foreigners in the Real team got on particularly well. Kopa - of French/Polish extraction, Alfredo [Di Stefano, from Argentina] and myself formed a card school when travelling and we would clean up against the Spanish players.

During my time there, along with the European Cup victories, we won many honours including five consecutive league titles from 1960-61 onwards, an unequalled feat in Spanish football. I really felt surrounded by affection and respect. Which is no doubt why I had such a good life in Spain.

On the 1960 European Cup final: Real Madrid 7 - 3 Eintracht Frankfurt

There were 135,000 fans in Hampden Park that evening and it was one of those blissful times when the whole team seemed to play brilliantly and we almost achieved some kind of footballing perfection. They were one up before we had even opened our eyes. It was Di Stefano among us who woke up first and he scored two. I hit four goals on the trot after that. What can I say? It was a privilege to be there. But it wasn't easy to go out for that game in Glasgow. I was 33 at the time. I had a bad feeling in my stomach beforehand. I was thinking, 'You're not 20 any more. Are you up to this?' But once I stepped out on the grass it all washed away.

On going home

When I left Hungary and received the FA and Fifa ban, I swore to myself I would never return. I felt bitter at such treatment, after so many years giving my best for the nation. But after 25 years I did go home. When I arrived at the airport it was packed with people who gave me the most warm welcome I could wish for. It was unbelievable. There were people screaming and shouting as if a pop star had arrived. As soon as I could, I visited the Kispest cemetery where the graves of my parents lay. I had never visited my mother's before.

Excerpts adapted by Amy Lawrence from Puskas on Puskas (1999, Rogan Taylor and Klara Jamrich), Robson Books, £9.99. © Rogan Taylor & Klara Jamrich

---------------------------------------------

Here is some more articles if anyone is interested in reading up on Ferenc Puskas;

'Peerless Puskas'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-2459994,00.html

'Magical Magyar Puskas mesmerised defences'

http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=243626

'Majestic Puskas will live long in our memories'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport....r19.xml

by **112-1077774096** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:38 pm

after the munich air crash he offered to go to man u on loan to help them out

by **taff** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 1:06 pm

In the end I threw up my arms and gestured: 'Listen this is all very well but have you looked at me? I am 18 kilos overweight.' Bernabeu replied: 'That's not my problem it's yours.'

:laugh:

Class read thanks

by **The Magician** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:41 pm

When you talk about world class players geniuses they dont come much bigger or better than Mr Ferenc Puskas

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