Salute to a Real Star

Imagine what you would have to pay for a player who scored more than 250 goals for the biggest clubs in two European countries. A player who made his international debut at 18, quickly became captain and went on to score an astonishing 83 goals in 84 games. A man who led his country to success in the 1952 Olympics and an improbable defeat by West Germany in the 1954 World Cup final. A player for whom the word ‘legend’ might have been invented.

Everyone who loves football will be saddened by the loss of Ferenc Puskas, who died in hospital in Budapest early on the 17th November 2006 at the age of 79 after a six year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

He averaged a goal a game with Honved and when he went to Spain, he won La Liga 5 times and the European Cup 4 times with Real Madrid, but above all he will be remembered for two games that helped change the face of football.

In 1953, his Hungarian side became the first ever foreign team to win at Wembley when they destroyed a complacent England 6-3 with an exhibition of football that shocked a nation and sparked a revolution in the game – and to prove it was no fluke they did even better with a 7-1 triumph in the return fixture in Budapest six months later which remains in the record books as the heaviest defeat in England’s history.

Seven years after that, his Real Madrid side produced what many still regard as the perfect team performance when they devastated Eintracht Frankfurt in the final of the European Cup with thrilling, inventive football. Puskas scored 4 and the great Alfredo Di Stefano 3 in the 7-3 victory.

Now, nearly 50 years later, football is awash with money and words like ‘great’ and ‘legend’ have been cheapened by overuse. The enduring memory of Ferenc Puskas gives us a reason to re-evaluate those words and hopefully to restore them to their former glory.