Ferenc Puskas

Fizz and I were both incensed about this story. Ferenc Puskas, one of football's all time greats is now seriously ill in hospital. He has been forced to auction off his memorabilia from his time in the game. A recent benefit match for him saw him receive a paltry £7,000. It is appalling that such a great player has been reduced to this. In this day where average players can become millionaires for doing very little with the careers it's sad that someone who played the game for more than 20 years becoming a legend in the process can't even afford to pay for health care in his final years.

If you don't know anything about Puskas, have a look at the 'Pish profile below.

Puskas earned 84 caps for Hungary scoring 83 goals. He also won 4 caps for Spain, in the days when you could play for more than one country.

He won 2 European Cups (1959 & 60), one World Club Championship (1960) 4 Spanish Championships, one Spanish Cup, 4 Hungarian championships and the Olympic Gold Medal in 1952.

Hungary were once one of the world’s great footballing nations, losing 4-2 to Italy in the 1938 World Cup Final. Even throughout the post war years when the Soviet Union took land and colonised people in Hungary, the football team still rose to great heights.

In 1948 the authorities took Kispet and turned them into Honved the team of the Hungarian Army. This was a time before the formation of the European Cup and Honved became the most successful side in Europe and formed the basis for the Hungarian National team.

In that first season, Puskas scored 50 goals as he won the first of his four Hungarian Championships with Honved.

Puskas was captain of his country when they won the gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

In 1953 'The Mighty Magyars' came to Wembley and hammered England 6-3, the first team outside the British Isles to beat them on their own soil. Less than six months later, England went to Hungary and lost 7-1.

In 1954 the Hungarian side were the favourites to lift the World Cup and a 9-0 win over South Korea and an 8-3 destruction of West Germany seemed to suggest that they were on course to do just that. However Puskas picked up an injury in that West German game that would see him sit out the quarter final ‘The Battle of Basle’ against Brazil, when English referee Arthur Ellis sent off three players in a 4-2 Hungarian win. Puskas also missed the semi-final, another 4-2 win, this time over Uruguay.

In the final, again against West Germany, The 'Galloping Major’ returned, declaring himself fit, though this was doubtful. After 8 minutes of play it was 2-0 Hungary with our man nabbing one of the goals. The West Germans though pulled the game back to two apiece. Puskas had a goal disallowed before Hungary lost the final 3-2. This was to be their last chance at claiming the world crown.

Honved toured Europe playing exhibition matches and when they came to Wolverhampton and lost 3-2, Wolves manager Stan Cullis declared his side ‘champions of the world.’

In 1956 the rebels in Hungary revolted against the Soviets leading to the Hungarian Uprising. Puskas was with his side in Spain at this time, playing in the European Cup. At this point he defected to the West.

He drifted around Europe trying to find a club. In 1958 at 31 and considered by many too old and too fat his old Honved manager Emil Oestreicher, now in charge at Real Madrid offered him a lifeline.

Puskas now lined up alongside another giant of the game Alfredo Di Stefano. Thanks to this partnership Puskas won the Pichichi award for the leading goalscorer in the Spanish League four times.

In 1960 Hampden Park hosted the game which has been regarded by many as the greatest football match of all time. 134,000 saw Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3. Di Stefano bagged a hat-trick. Puskas scored four. This was the fifth European Cup in a row for Madrid and Puskas’s second.

In 1962 Puskas was on the losing side in a European Cup Final as Benfica beat Madrid 5-3 with the 35 year old scoring all of Madrid’s goals.

Puskas lies 6th in the all time goalscorers list in the European Cup and Champions’ League. Of course he played in the time where there were no group sections and therefore far fewer games.

In all competitions for Real Madrid his record was 372 appearances with 324 goals.

He went on that summer to play for Spain at the World Cup Finals.

Puskas, still at Madrird at the time, retired from playing in 1966.

As a coach he went back to the European Cup Final in 1971 with Greek champions Panathinaikos where they lost to Ajax.

In 1993 he returned to Hungary to live for the first time since the uprising, to become Caretaker Manager of the national side. Bossing them for four World Cup qualifiers.

Honved have pensioned off his jersey number for good, in honour of the great player.

The Federation of Football History and Statistics named Puskas the all time best scorer of the 20th century.

On Puskas's 75th birthday in 2002, the Hungarian government renamed the country’s biggest football stadium, The Budapest "Nepstadion" (People's Stadium) to Ferenc Puskas Stadium.