Ferenc Puskás (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈpuʃkaːʃ]; born Ferenc Purczeld; 2 April 1927– 17 November 2006) was a Hungarian footballer and manager. He scored 84 goals in 85 international matches for Hungary, and 514 goals in 529 matches in the Hungarian and Spanish leagues. Top scorer of the 20th century,he was voted one of the greatest football players by World Soccer magazine.
Puskás started his career in Hungary playing for Kispest and Budapest Honvéd. He was top scorer in the Hungarian League on four occasions, and in 1948, he was the top goal scorer in Europe. During the 1950s, he was both a prominent member and captain of the legendary Hungarian national team, known as the Mighty Magyars. In 1958, two years after the Hungarian Revolution, he emigrated to Spain where he played for the legendary Real Madrid team that also included Alfredo di Stéfano, Francisco Gento, Raymond Kopa, Héctor Rial, and José Santamaría, and went on to play for the Spanish national team.
While playing with Real Madrid, Puskás won four Pichichis and scored seven goals in two European Champions Cup finals. In 1995, he was recognized as the top scorer of the 20th century by the IFFHS.
After retiring as a player, he became a coach. The highlight of his coaching career came in 1971 when he guided Panathinaikos to the European Cup final, where they lost 2–0 to AFC Ajax. Despite his defection in 1956, Puskás remained an admired hero in Hungary. In 1993, the Hungarian government granted him a full pardon, allowing him to return and take temporary charge of the Hungarian national team. In 1998, he became one of the first ever FIFA/SOS Charity ambassadors. In 2002, the Népstadion in Budapest was renamed the Puskás Ferenc Stadion in his honor. He was also declared the best Hungarian player of the last 50 years by the Hungarian Football Federation in the UEFA Jubilee Awards in November 2003. In October 2009, FIFA announced the introduction of the FIFA Puskás Award, awarded to the player who has scored the "most beautiful goal" over the past year. The inaugural Puskás Award was presented on December 21, 2009 at the FIFA World Player Gala where Cristiano Ronaldo was the first player to receive this prize.
Life and Career Overview
Main article: Golden Team
Certainly the "European Player of the 20th Century" and twice World Player of the Year (1952, 1953), Ferenc Puskás often enters the conversation of where the greatest footballers ought to be lodged in the pantheon of the last 100 years. The ever engaging and personable Ferenc Puskás was the most powerful striker Europe ever produced at 1st division football. He was also the greatest goalscoring international who ever lived. Undoubtedly, the most renowned and greatest of Hungarian sportsmen, he is likely in company with Harry Houdini and Ernő Rubik who lent his name to the iconic Rubik's Cube, for being the most famous Hungarian citizen of the 20th Century.
In a difficult rebuilding world of the postwar era, in the arc light and formative glow of emerging nascent mass media with a global reach and enhanced telecommunications, increasing networked newswires and live television coverage that meet audiences as never before, Puskás was football's first superstar both club level and in the world game predating the likes of Di Stéfano, Pelé, Eusébio, Johan Cruijff, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best, Diego Maradona, and Zinedine Zidane.
Oft-likened short, he was of modest proportions, rotund with muscular billiard ball table legs and average in-line speed but with deceptive acceleration. Puskás never did acclimate to using his nondominant right foot for much except to dribble and scored few goals with his head but more than made up with an on-field generalship and a deep cerebral reading of the game. He had a keen footballing brain to match his otherworldly accuracy. As anecdotal evidence would have, he had the intuition with extra sensory perception to know other sides' tactical nuances in less than 15 minutes of field play to orient his side accordingly. He exhibited a precocious talent at an early age, a velvety dribble and heroic scoring indulgence from the ball from which he was impossible to separate by those defending in his presence. He is reputed to have been blessed with the most powerful drive ever cast from a left foot, an exclusive leaden snapshot that deftly tore through defenses with unerring precision. It is known that this great player scored 514 1st division-class goals and a total sum 1176 goals in a 24-year career. The main producer and inspirer of a great Hungarian squad who charted the team's mantle towards exceptionalism, Puskás was honored for being named the greatest 1st division goalscorer in the 20th century by the prestigious International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) in 1995. Pelé was voted the most outstanding player of the century by the IFFHS with Puskás not far behind, ranking just behind Diego Maradona in the balloting.
A man with a touch of Midas in him, every team to which Puskás was attached as a captain and player were eminently the best in the world that seemed to prosper immensely from his seniority; profiting from an elegant yet fiery competitor with the sunniest of rough-diamond manners and a loud style who could seem to annex the most obdurate lines with brilliant expositions that sparkled nigh on goal. As captain of mighty Honvéd (for whom the majority of the national team's players played at club level), the greatest club side before the emergence of Real Madrid, and captain of Hungary, he was paired with the formidably talented and his near equal Sándor Kocsis. They were the greatest redoubtable scoring tandem that ever graced world football with 159 goals between them, vastly outdistancing all those that came before to put in place records that would be everlasting.
Later estranged from his homeland for many a good reason, but due in part, to the reprisals that were the fallout of the failed Hungarian Revolution and what might have awaited him for his refusal to return from abroad, the unusually apolitical Puskás was adrift in exile. On the wrong side of 30 and serving a one-year ban from FIFA, the man of large and joyous appetites and a heart spent on goodwill, was now out of shape and thought to be in the twilight of his playing days. Soon he found himself in the employ of the greatest club side in the world, Real Madrid at the height of its powers, to begin a second consecutive and stunning double career.
At a time when players think of retirement, Puskás faced a daunting challenge of learning a new language in the distinct new world of Francisco Franco's Spain, but with the gift of confidence and the right mental attitude too, Puskás soon endeared himself to everyone around him. Most importantly, he gelled with on-field boss and great Argentine star Alfredo Di Stéfano, who was never the easiest man to know, temperamental cheek being part of his charm. Winning 5 Spanish championships along with way, Puskás again became a relevation, a four-time Spanish league-leading incandescent forward in legendary communion with Di Stéfano to form the basis for the greatest double act (as had been the earlier case with Kocsis) world club football has ever seen. While at Read Madrid, Puskás was considered the indispensable man of campaigns that saw Real Madrid win three UEFA European Championships and enlisted his help to be finalists on two other occasions.
As a player who was never bought or sold in his life, Puskás spent his entire career at the very top of his profession that seemed to raise his game to a sublime level. Puskás was central to the very heart of football history itself, having been involved in three of the most discussed matches of all-time: the "Match of the Century (where he scored twice), "Miracle of Berne" (the 1954 World Cup Final, where he scored once and had a picture perfect 87th minute poignant equalizer unpardonably called offside), and Eintracht Frankfurt 3 vs. Real Madrid 7 (the 1960 European Cup Final where he scored 4 goals in what has been called the greatest and most famous European club match in history).
After the 1956 Uprising there were pockets of Hungarian expatriates in every major city in the West. While traveling with Real Madrid and beyond, he became a veritable consulate for members of these communities, ready to lend his support, financial or otherwise, to those who were in most need. Therein lies a Horatio Alger tale of a charitable man and player rising to the pinnacle of the game that began behind the Iron Curtain.
Many years before the team's arrival on the world scene, Hungary's Imre Schlosser merited high citation for gaining the most international goals with 59 since 1921. During the Mighty Magyars' flowering, Puskás proceeded to famously break his countryman's world record in 1953, and Sándor Kocsis registered his 60th goal in just his 50th game in 1955, and Hungary boasted of fielding, in unison, the No. 1 and No. 2 world record holders simultaneously. Kocsis was an authority in size, pace and note must be taken that his aerial prowess the world would come to see had no peer. Aside the peerless Puskás, the only 20th century player to outrank Kocsis's 75 goals (in just 68 games) and world record 6 hat tricks was the Brazilian Pelé, who scored 77 goals in his 92 matches. Kocsis' pervasive quality at point and aura was unavoidable, as someone who engaged and mystified defenses with stunning alacrity, he placed himself at the foremost among history's great scoring internationals. European and world football bore witness stastically to the most victorious striker of the 20th century with the highest ever winning percentage (84.45%: 52 won, 11 draws, 5 lost). Puskás' superior count of 84 international goals in 85 games still is football's benchmark, unmatched by any top-flight player from the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa.
Career in Hungary
Early years
Puskás was born as Ferenc Purczeld in Budapest and brought up in Kispest, then a village near the city. Today, Kispest is a district in Budapest. He was ten years old when his father Ferenc Sr. changed the family surname to Puskás.[11] He began his career as a junior with Kispest AC,[8] where his father, who had previously played for the club, was a coach.
He initially used the pseudonym Miklós Kovács to help circumvent the minimum age rules before officially signing at the age of 12. Among his early teammates was his childhood friend and future international teammate József Bozsik. He made his first senior appearance for Kispest in November 1943 in a match against Nagyváradi AC.
Kispest was taken over by the Hungarian Ministry of Defence in 1949, becoming the Hungarian Army team and changing its name to Budapest Honvéd. As a result, football players were given military ranks. Puskás eventually became a major, which led to the nickname "The Galloping Major". As the army club, Honvéd used conscription to acquire the best Hungarian players, leading to the recruitment of Zoltán Czibor and Sándor Kocsis. During his career at Budapest Honvéd, Puskás helped the club win five Hungarian League titles. He also finished as top goal scorer in the league in 1947–48, 1949–50, 1950 and 1953, scoring 50, 31, 25 and 27 goals, respectively. In 1948, he was the top goal scorer in Europe.
Mighty Magyars
Main article: Golden Team
Puskás made his debut for Hungary team on 20 August 1945 and scored in a 5–2 win over Austria. He went onto play 85 games and scored 84 times for Hungary. His international goal record included two hat tricks against Austria, one against Luxembourg and four goals in a 12–0 win over Albania. Together with Zoltán Czibor, Sándor Kocsis, József Bozsik, and Nándor Hidegkuti, he formed the nucleus of the legendary team that went unbeaten for a then world record 32 consecutive games. During this run, they became Olympic Champions in 1952, beating Yugoslavia 2–0 in the final in Helsinki. Puskás scored four times at the Olympic tournament, including the opening goal in the final. They also twice gave England a footballing lesson. In 1953, they stunned England with a 6–3 win in what was called the Match of the Century and became the first non-UK team to defeat the English national team at Wembley Stadium. At their next meeting in 1954, the Magyars defeated England 7–1 in Budapest, which, to this day, remains England's heaviest ever defeat in international football. Puskás scored two goals in each game against England. This footballing exhibition was in part due to the early style of football strikingly similar to the "total football" displayed by the Dutch teams of 20 years later. This in stark comparison to the rigid system employed by the English team. In 1953, they also became Central European Champions. Hungary won the championship after finishing top of the table with 11 points. Puskás finished the tournament as top scorer with 10 goals and scored twice as Hungary claimed the trophy with a 3–0 win over Italy at the Stadio Olimpico in 1953.
Puskás scored three goals in the two first-round matches Hungary played at the 1954 FIFA World Cup. They defeated South Korea 9–0 and then West Germany 8–3. In the latter game, he suffered an ankle injury after a tackle by Werner Liebrich and did not return until the final. Despite not playing, Puskás became embroiled in controversy during the infamous quarter-final encounter with Brazil, dubbed the Battle of Bern. After the game finished, Puskás, a spectator, allegedly struck Pinheiro, a Brazilian player, with a bottle. The bottle gave Pinheiro a three-inch cut. Other reports blame another spectator and not Puskás.
Puskás played the entire 1954 World Cup final against West Germany, although he was not fully fit. Despite this, he scored his fourth goal of the tournament to put Hungary ahead after six minutes, and with Czibor adding another goal two minutes later, it seemed destined that the pre-tournament favorites would take the title. However, the West Germans pulled back two goals before half time and the tide began to turn. The second half saw telling misses from the Hungarian team and then with six minutes left the West Germans scored the winner. Two minutes from the end of the match, Puskás scored an equalizer but, in a controversial call, the goal was disallowed due to an offside call. Hungary lost 3–2, its record unbeaten run ended.
Photo
video
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق