“I like football almost more than life…it’s crazy.” That’s the way I talk Ferenc Puskás (Budapest, 1927-2006) in 1999, when he had already been retired for many years; when his belly had curled out so that she couldn’t see her feet, even though his murderous little left-handed man remained down there. The footballer author of such a visceral and melancholic statement had formed with two of the teams that inhabited the happy footballing Arcadia: the magical Hungarian team that was left without a World Cup crown, and the intractable Madrid that overwhelmed at the start of the European Cup. Pound for pound, no one like Puskás accumulates the merits to become the object of the nostalgic fan’s fables, the one who fantasizes about a field of dreams populated by greats from bygone eras of whom he heard stories. Puskás should appear as he used to jump onto the field, always gelled, if possible in black and white. And it would be inevitable to smile when seeing again the smoking instep of the footballer with two runs, as the classics explain, which was the “Galloping General” in communist Hungary, and that when he had been considered retired, he returned already older and dressed in white so that Franco’s Spain would baptize him as «Cañoncito Pum».
Because although he is remembered for his game (and for his gut), dry dribbling and Cartesian precision, Puskás, two roaring syllables that will always resonate with football, was the shot. That is why the language of war is inevitable. Someone hit the ball as hard as he did, but none of those who equaled him in power could do it accurately. And for those who like to limit football to figures, the Hungarian blew them up with cannon shots. FIFA considers him the best scorer of the 20th century, with 512 goals in 528 official matches, including 84 in 85 games with his team. He scored four goals in a final of the highest European club competition (in one of the games of the century, Madrid’s 7-3 win over Eintracht in 1960), and not content with that, three more in another (the one Madrid lost with Benfica 5-3 two years later). Unattainable numbers for a footballer whose life would deserve to occupy a novel as thick as the belly that ended up becoming his distinctive sign.
Oksi, go to Kispest
And this even though Puskás, in reality, was not Puskás. The family Purczfeld Biro He changed his first surname, of German origin, once the Second World War began, a time in which it was not convenient to be associated with the crazy Nazism. His father chose Puskás; and Puskás in Hungarian is firearm, shotgun. One more reason why when we talk about him the balls whistle like leather bullets near our ears…
In the 1930s, gunshots were no longer heard frequently in Budapest. Hungary is under the regency of Miklós Horthy, a nobleman capable of quickly quelling a Bolshevik revolution that lasted no more than six months in 1919. Is there any image of the child who plays in the Kispest neighborhood, in the humblest part of the city? The dark Ferenc has a blond friend. From the way they tame their ball, these same age Zipi and Zape look like little devils. Many years later, they will have to face each other with the shirts of Madrid and Barcelona: the inseparable Puskás is nothing less than Lashi Kubala. EvaOcsi’s sister, as everyone in the family and neighborhood called Ferenc, reminds them of the two sitting at a table to eat, while they hit the ball from below.
At the age of ten, he was already enrolled in Kispest, the pride of the neighborhood club. The Puskás house was located next to the stadium. On some occasion in the street games he escaped the ball towards his and his mother’s window, Margarethe came to hit him, but he had the father, Ferenc, on your side. He had been a defender of Kispest and now he was his coach, and he was the one who led to the debut of his son. «Bozsik and I played together very young in first class, in the year 42 ». Puskás Ferenc (in Magyar the surname comes before the name), who was sixteen when it premiered in the highest category, refers to Bozsik József, two years older than him. A talented midfielder with a discreet physique who will become inseparable from him in his youth, while Kubala ends up with a great from the city, Ferencvaros. Legend says that Ocsi was accused of being slow, and that he tried to improve his speed by running alongside the tram. But it happened that football had to step aside among the concerns of these phenomena in their larval state.
A club for an army
Hungary was also unable to weather the horror of World War II. The governments dependent on the Horthy regency had been quite close to Hitleras a result of German economic and military pressure, and Hungary had even collaborated in the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. When Prime Minister Kallay Contemplating the possibility of an Allied victory and beginning a rapprochement with the other side, the Führer responded in 1944 with an invasion that met with no opposition. In November, the government was left in the hands of the fascist Szalasi. And the barbarism began, Hungary tragic scene of the battle between the Axis forces and the Soviet army. Puskás was one of the citizens of Budapest who suffered a terrible siege, until in the spring of 1945 the Soviets seized power.
Then the reconstruction began. But the shortcomings did not lessen the passion for soccer. Within the framework of communist Hungary, the recently appointed coach Gusztáv Sebes, who combined the position with that of vice minister of sports, was going to promote the birth of a legendary club. Sebes wanted the team to be made up of players from only two teams, in imitation of what Italy, winner of two world championships, had done in the previous decade. At the beginning of 1949, Hungary the nationalization of its soccer clubs begins. The MTK becomes dependent on the secret police. As Ferencvaros exudes too much of a nationalist flavor, Kispest AC is the club of choice for the army. Since then, he will be called Honvéd, “defender of the homeland”. The old red and black uniform is replaced by a new one with a red shirt and white shorts.
Sebes takes care to gather some of the best chicks in Puskás and Bozsik’s nest. From Ferencvaros they arrive Zoltan Czibor, Sandor Kocsis o Laszlo Budai. Gyula Lorant He does it from Vasas, where he had met Ladislao Kubala, with whom he shares a history. Kubala was never recruited for the Honvéd having decided to leave the country in January 1949, disguised as a soldier in a truck with Soviet registration. Lorant was arrested shortly after when he tried to emulate his partner. He came to spend several months in prison, and was released thanks to the intercession of Sebes himself, who considered him crucial to his scheme.
This is how the Honvéd began its golden age. On the back of Puskás’ scoring inspiration, he began to add league titles by crushing: five between 50 and 56. The ten was top scorer on four occasions, always as a left inside. And just as terrible as his shot on goal, on the move or with the ball set, was his look at his teammate when he missed an easy pass. He became known as the “Galloping General”, although his rank in the army was colonel, and he conversed at receptions with the greats of the country. His name and that of Honvéd became popular with fans on the continent. In 1950, he married Erzsébeth Hunyadvary, former Kispest handball player. Together they had a daughter Aniko.
magyars full of magic
The first milestone came in the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games (Hungary, like other European countries, refused to participate in the 1950 World Cup), in which Hungarian players were able to participate because they were amateurs. Puskás, who had made his debut in 1945, was unleashed with a clean kick. Hungary scored seven goals against Turkey in qualifying, and six against then-powerhouse Sweden in the semi-finals. In the final against Yugoslavia, Kocsis, an excellent header, scored the 1-0, and Puskás the goal of the final triumph by 2-1. The two stood out in the attack together with the figure of the MTK, Nandor Hidegkuti. The spectators who observed Puskás as captain at the top of the podium were attending the lighting of the Gold team, the golden team, a block that will become the ideal propaganda element to inflame national pride. Players received no cash reward, but instead were given ownership of some business as a gift. Puskás was assigned a hardware store, where they say he killed time playing cards with friends, without paying attention to the collection.
That almost sacred ensemble was going to commit a desecration. On November 25, 1953, before one hundred and ten thousand spectators and with the twin towers of old London’s Wembley as witnesses. England, which boasted of being the inventor of football, was led by a legend, sir Walter Winterbottom. Nobody had ever beaten her on her ground: there was the crux of the matter of that match, friendly only on paper, historic and seminal in the history of football.
The English arranged the WM formation that Chapman popularized with Arsenal in the 1920s. But Gusztáv Sebes (who always pointed to English as one of his teachers Hogan, MTK coach many years before) destroyed his opponent with one move: dropping Hidegkuti from the theoretical center forward position. something that sublimated Di Stefano in Madrid, something that Messi He became a habit in Barcelona. The English defense was going to find itself perplexed without a striker to mark. Puskás remembered his coach’s talk before the game: «Sebes spoke, we were all silent. We had to help each other and use our heads. Hidegkuti, five years older than Puskás (“very intelligent”, according to his partner), was going to complete a memorable performance.
“Look at that chubby guy”, they say it was heard from the stands when someone glanced at Puskás. At thirty minutes, the chubby and his team were already winning 1-4. The feeling between pros it was that the Hungarians had just landed in a flying saucer. The third goal, the work of Puskás, was a prodigy. Inside the area, leaning to the right, he faked the shot with his left leg; the english captain Billy Wright he came in like a locomotive, but Puskás stomped the ball back, and Wright passed him by, “like a fire truck going to the wrong fire,” according to Geoffrey Green in The Times. The ball was oriented and Puskás executed a left-footed shot to the left corner of Merrick. Szepesia Hungarian commentator, went so far as to suggest the possibility of placing a plaque at Wembley as a reminder of the goal.
The final result of 3-6 (three Hidegkuti, two Puskás, one Bozsik), was misleading. Hungary shot on goal thirty-five times, by five of the English. The Stanley Matthews, Wright or Ramsey, future world champion as English coach in 1966, were disarmed, and the WM passed away. “Yesterday, on a gray and wintry afternoon, at Wembley Stadium, the inevitable happened,” Green surrendered in The Times. “We thought we were going to destroy some players who were not professionals, who belonged to the army. It was completely backwards. A single game changed not only my way of thinking, but everyone’s,” he observed. Bobby Robson, spectator that day. When the train with the Hungarian players started, Victoria station was full of English fans still dazzled by what had happened. The return was a celebration. The team, which was already known as the “Magic Magyars”, was cheered on in Paris and Vienna, before arriving in Budapest, where thirty-five thousand people were waiting.
“Watching them play, I wondered what we had been doing all those years.” The phrase is from another historic English footballer, Tom Finney, who had also been in the Wembley stands. Unfortunately for him, Finney was included in the team (six of the starters in the defeat in London were never called up to the team again) that on May 23 of the following year returned the visit to the Hungarians. A sad honor: the biggest English defeat to date, 7 goals to 1 at the Nepstadion, with two from Puskás (who made Wright dizzy again, this time with the decoration of a tunnel), two from Kocsis and one from Hidegkuti. The insult endorsed.
(Will continue)
