Best Viewed At 50% to Higher Zoom View Magnification

For: George, Liz, Toni II, Peter, Toni I

***** Ferenc Puskás (1927-2006) *****  ' The Greatest Pure Offensive Optimum/Maximum Bandwidth Action Team Game Player & Leader ' The Case For:  ' The Greatest ' = ' The Very Best Ever '  'The Greatest' Ever  Of 19th And 20th Centuries'
' The Greatests ' All Time Top Ranked National Teams  source: www.eloratings.net				' The Greatests ' The 20th Century's All Time Top Ranked League Teams source: http://clubelo.com/Stats/Highest 20th Century Rank  Franchise Club  Peak Elo Peak Date Star Players No. 1. Gold Real Madrid 2069 March 19, 1961 Puskás-Di Stéfano-Gento-Santamaría No. 2 Silver AC Milan 2052 3.18.1993 No. 3 Bronze  MTK Budapest 2037 10.20.1955 Hidegkuti-Palotás-Lantos-Zakariás No 4.  Barcelona 2006 10.6.1960 Kubala-Kocsis-Czibor-Suarez
All Time Rank	Nation	Peak Elo Points	Date Set
No. 1. Gold	Hungary (Captain Ferenc Puskás)	2232	July 4, 1954
No. 2 Silver	Germany	2223	July 13, 2014
No. 3 Bronze	England	2216	Nov. 9, 1912
No. 4	Brazil	2195	Nov. 28, 2022
No. 5	Spain	2165	June 23, 2013
No. 6	Argentina	2160	April 3, 1957
No. 7	Belgium	2158	June 27, 2021

' The Greatests ' All Time National Top Division Zenith League Goalscorers The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (update January 5, 2022)  source: IFFHS World's Best Top Division Goal Scorer - Wikipedia
All Time Rank	Star Player	Nationality	Goals
1. Gold	Ferenc Puskás	Hungary	511*
3. Silver	Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	487
3. Bronze	Lionel Messi	Argentina	475
No. 4	Imre Schlosser	Hungary	417
No. 5	Gyula Zsellengér	Hungary	416
Puskás was banned from playing by FIFA for 18-months for his defection from Hungary from 1956-1958.
' The Greatest ' Ferenc Puskás & Sándor Kocsis at Budapest Honvéd (1950 - 1956) The Greatest Strike Duo in National Top Division Football History source: Positional Hall of Fame: The Greatest Functional Lines of All-Time (xtraimmortal.blogspot.com) Budapest Honvéd Players Total Matches Total Goals Goal Ratio Sándor Kocsis 176 217 1.23 Ferenc Puskás 164 163 0.99 Combined Game Statistics: 340 380 total goals 2.22 gls./game

Simply the Greatest! (1949-1956 Hungary)  The Fantasy Team | The Dream Powerhouse | The Oracle Renaissance World Magic Olympian Team | The Top Legendary Crackerjack Side | A Sporting Avalon - the classic lineup of the Hungarian 'Golden Team/Magical Magyars':  Kocsis-Budai-Zakariás-Lantos-Buzánszky-Bozsik-Czibor-Hidegkuti-Loránt-Grosics-Puskás (pictured May 17th, 1953, in Rome), the highest rated national team of all time. The 'Golden Team' went 49 wins, 9 draws, and 1 unwon (with the omission of the 1954 World Cup Final for a 98.3% undefeated percentage) over the course of seven years that brandished a historic tour de force blockbuster offense in a class of its own that scored 4.36 goals per game at the sport's highest level. Wins Ties Losses Win % Undefeated % goals/match goals ag./m. goal diff./match 49 9 1 90.68% 98.31% +4.36 gls./gm -1.17 gls/gm +3.19 * Does not include the 1954 World Cup Final due to various controversies.   The games against the 'Soviet Union' on May 24th and 27th 1952 was played against a ' Moscow Select XI ' (Moscow city teams' selection and not the 'national Soviet Union team') and also will not be included in the statistics.

	List of footballers with 500 or more goals - Wikipedia (update 7/26/2023)					Stars meeting stars, Ferenc Puskás and Hollywood star Rita Hayworth at the big game.
	All Time Rank	Top Level Player	Official Matches	Goals	Goal Ratio
	5.)	Cristiano Ronaldo	1204	856	0.71
	6.)	Lionel Messi	1085	836	0.77
	7.)	Ferenc 'Sonny' Puskás	792	802	1.01
	8.)	Ferenc 'Bamba' Deák	514	+795	1.56

Hungary manager (1949-1956) Gustáv Sebes with the 1954 'Golden Team' portrait.	The greatest carrying the great, Puskás and Lev Yashin hoist up the legendary Stanley Matthews at Victoria Ground, UK (1965) after the winning World Select XI defeat England 7-6.

***** If The Master Association Football Equation Is: *****

'A Great Offense Is The Best Defense > 'The Best Defense Is A Good Offense'

 Offensive Team Balance w/ Rule No. 1 (To Outscore) > Conservative Team Balance > Defensive Team Conservatism =

 No. 1 'Total-Team' Offensive Power Bandwidth Rocket Player = 

 'Sonny' Puskás | 'The Swabian' | 'The Galloping Major' | 'The Little Booming Cannon' | 'Pancho'

Budapest Kispest (1943) ----> Budapest Honvéd (Finest World Club Side Before The European Champions Cup) ----> Hungary (Greatest Ever) ----> Real Madrid (Greatest Ever)

	source: (3) ... (@Trachta10) / Twitter			(3) ... (@Trachta10) / Twitter
	The Iconic Titan Legendary Six All Time Rankings	Team Goals per Career Match	Goals + Assists - Penalty Kicks / 90 minutes
	No. 1 Gold	Ferenc Puskás	Ferenc Puskás
	No. 2 Silver	Johan Cruyff	Pelé
	No. 3 Bronze	Pelé	Lionel Messi (ongoing)
	The SemiFinalist	Lionel Messi (ongoing)	Johan Cruyff

	***** 43 Important Tournament Matches ***** Puskás In The 'Champions League' & The Intercontinental Cup						128 Total Tournament Goals ÷ 43 Matches = 2.86 Goals/Match.   Puskás: 1.42 G + A per Match 1.42 ÷ 2.86  = Puskás Scoring Play Team Bandwidth % = 49.65%
	Teams Wins	Team Ties	Team Losses	Win %	Goal Diff./Match	Goals + Assists / Match
	26	7	10	68.60%	+1.51 Goals	38 Goals + 23 Assists  1.42 G + A / Match

Budapest Kispest (1943) ----> Budapest Honvéd (Finest World Club Side Before The European Champions Cup) ----> Hungary (Greatest Ever) ----> Real Madrid (Greatest Ever)

'The Greatest' of the 20th Century Joyous and winsome 'Pancho' Puskás training to be fit as a fiddle three days prior to the 1964 European Cup Final match.	Puskás On Top Level (National) Teams	Team Matches With Puskás	Puskás' Goals + Assists / Match	Team Goals / Match With Puskás	G + A per Match Scoring Play Team Bandwidth %	Team Goal Diff. / Match	Distinctions & Honors
	Budapest Kispest  (1943-1948/49)	174	1.42	2.72	52.2%	+0.84	World's Top League Scorer, 1947-48 (50 goals in 31 Matches) 5 National Championships  4 Time Scoring M.V.P.
	Budapest Honvéd (1949/50 - 1956)	164	1.98	4.30	46.0%	+2.79
	Real Madrid (1958-1966)	262	1.44	2.72	52.9% (Scoring Play Involved 52.9% of Time In All Matches)	+1.70	Highest Rated Club of 20th Century (2069 Elo points)
	5 National Championships | 4 Time Scoring M.V.P.  3 Gold + 2 Silver European Cup Team Title | 1960 World Club Title Played On 121 Back-to-Back Undefeated League Matches (World Record)
	Hungary  (1945-1956)	85	1.58	3.99	39.6%	+2.58	Highest Rated Team of All Time (2232 Elo points)

Two of Hungary's most famous native sons from Budapest, Ferenc Puskás and his great strike partner and teammate Sándor Kocsis were fateful survivors of the pivotal and strategic 'Siege of Budapest' that lasted from December 24, 1944 to February 13, 1945.  18-year-old Ferenc Puskás' debut in the Hungarian national team was on August 20, 1945 ('Saint Stephen's Day') which was Hungary's second match in the bellwether turning-point and tough crucible turbulent year.  The teenager 'Öcsi' ('Sonny') and 'the Swabian' Puskás scored first in Puskás' famous inaugural 5-2 win over the world's No. 7 Austria in Budapest 104 days after 'Victory in Europe Day' on May 8, 1945.

      All association sporting teams have before it an icon of unexampled production, the true favorited ideal perfect soleil of the offense, or the idol of the super 'beyond further' (plus ultra) power Midas rocket player.

      There is a player everyone has heard of, the annual FIFA Puskás Award well receives those players who have scored the most 'aesthetically significant' or most 'beautiful goal' in a calendar year.  Puskás was honored for being named the top national 1st division goalscorer in the 20th century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (I.F.F.H.S) in 1997.  With Hungary Puskás became the international world-record holder for goals with 83 goals in 83 'full national' appearances and who also held the world-record for most national top league goals with 511.  Puskás was also a historic plus ultra ('further beyond') 'total-team' game player to dazzle with a dividend of such enlivening converse and decisive final-pass delivery to teammates to still hold the all time world-record with 404 total assists.  Puskás would admit the whole triumphant answer with the goals that win, with the assists that glow to form them into a fine scoring athletic ensemble of unparalleled amplitude there lies all the length and breadth and the bravado of the fondest player, Ferenc Puskás was the 'The Greatest Player of the 20th Century'.

          Once there came a man from very humble origins who pursued football's horizons during times severely tried by the calamities of the 20th Century and as by some vast undivided magic played together with the greatest players of the ages on fabulous teams modern as any who helped make European, athletic and sports history and who universalized the greatness of two renowned titan teams of all times.  As a player who was never bought or sold in his life Puskás spent his entire career at the very top-flight of his profession that seemed to raise his game to a sublime level. 

        Ferenc Puskás (b. April 1, 1927, Budapest) also known worldwide as 'Öcsi' (Sonny), 'The Galloping Major' and 'Pancho' was the great maximally élite top level 'total-team' transcending sport-changing mercurial triumphant high fidelity action player as the conductor par excellence of such leading command for whom formalists and sports leaders had been searching for ever since the early 20th Century.  With Puskás playing a key role as captain and primarily the No. 10 forward all great teams that he played for statistically soared as the highest scoring and highest ranked everlasting teams of all time.

           If the sport of association football is keyed to the tenor of the ruling goal on a perfectly functional team to decide a match's result not necessarily possession then there was no other more influential history-making, landscape-shaping and efficient powerhouse top-flight offensive star player in the game than Ferenc Puskás.  Puskás is still considered the most eminent national and national top division goalscorer unified in the sport.   As a master milestones-making goalscorer Puskás was somebody who rows somewhere far on a sojourn to set in the sky high scoring numbers, records and historical precedence.  But scoring goals is not everything but also conceived in well versed team participation rejoicing with high skill and a decided playmaking presence for players who could excel and perform well with others and for Puskás there is a centerstage to that praise being recognized as one of the 'very greatest players' the sport has ever seen.

"The World's Greatest Goalscorer", an exhibit to an exceptional player, Ferenc Puskás at the National Football Museum, Manchester, United Kingdom, 2015.

Three Iconic Immortal All Time Master Pioneering Legends: Di Stéfano, Kubala (the man whomade 'Camp Nou' in Barcelona famous) and Puskás.

      Ferenc Puskás' unequalled modern inside No. 10 long forward sublime game of winding ways through alley and trick, the heavy stride and the hard prelude run with the thunderstrike cannonball with teams of magnificent stern array (Budapest Honvéd, Hungary, Real Madrid) who rained goalscoring aura yielding to goalscoring aura as his co-led teams waged contention in 17 huge tournaments (1.00 goal/career tournament match with 73 goals in 73 matches) and 10 national championships that attracts to crush with powerful ardors.  With sweet buds of speed and acceleration purposing the playmaking jazz and conjuring the forward missioning winning spirit of gladness as fierce artificer from offensive zone to defensive zone Puskás satisfied the game's full relish, bandwidth and circumference to supersede all teams into the maximally élite record-books of all time rank.             

       Engaging defensive lines with aplomb in the midst of it all is Puskás as the No. 10 forward fronting the surging tumult ahead where his keener cannonball lightnings flashed who came across with the big-play deft passing who flung the ball to the most difficult spots on the springing grass with chisel legwork to rebuild it as Puskás had gone to bring again 'greatness' for the most fond imponderable dream.  His potent, felt, interior command has the quality to strike deep as a marvelous athletic pillar affirming the natural passing scheme that drummed and hummed with a famous familiarity, scoring goals with his many assists that imbues Budapest Honvéd, Hungary and Real Madrid with a particular genius of hale crushing charms; and there is a Midas inexhaustible fund of buoyancy as Puskás help build one superb team after another with a remarkable talent through him the current and index of three risen great master teams that will rank as defining sport-changing powerhouses equal or better than the greatest sides known as the maestro key player with three of the highest peaks ever assembled. 

        We can view the 20th Century sport's evolution with perspective with Puskás as the great master player whose teams most completely indicated the ways and the times in which football turned from the traditions of much earlier times to the new mode in the second half of the century.  Only he holds the proud distinction of being on three of the most fulsomely hailed teams: mighty Budapest Honvéd (1949-1956), Hungary (1945-1956) and Real Madrid (1958-1966), the latter two have remained for many the greatest teams to be seen in all the records of the sport and the two principal and paramount teams of all time. 

       Three of his great matches ('The Match of the Century', the 1954 World Cup Final and Real Madrid 7, Eintracht Frankfurt 3) were massive, elemental, becoming widely famous foundational wonder games of the age demanding depth and insight.  In these games where Puskás was the chief participant, the 6-3 win over England where he scored two goals and made two more, the 1954 World Cup Final match (the world championship decider where he opened and closed the scoring with two legitimate goals) that lived under a cloud of suspicion and huge controversy and the 7-3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the spring of 1960 where he scored four goals are among the best ever done.

      The velocity and phenomena of Ferenc '(Öcsi' or 'Sonny' pronounched: 'Uhchee') Puskás, the astute navigator with giants with Hungary from 1947-1956 and with 1958-1966 Real Madrid was the prize-winning sport hero who was on the dial with the serene power of his on-field generalship as a player of superior craft always acting as the true helm of the attack who pressed deep inside with insights and who plays with a profound magical crackling irrepressible 'total-team' game that moved from prim goalscoring who fired goals' certainties (802 total goals in 792 official matches | 1.01 goals / career match) to his idyllic playmaking élan that magnified his on-field greatness.

       Mustering game-altering top level scores of the quality of the first and all time greatest American baseball player icon Babe Ruth (the 'Bambino' who scored a world-record 714 homeruns) Puskás never did acclimate to using his nondominant right foot for much except to dribble and he also scored few goals with his head.  Footballs warm, break and crackle at his feet with dazzling masteries of swiftness and precision as somebody who lost tough clinging opponents by something he was prized and was renowned by, who upon the sylvan scene on the wide pitch gave the great thunderstone left-footed matchless resplendent hot levitating goal-striking cannonball that Puskás is still widely considered the greatest goal-shooter who has ever played the game.

       Considered in relation to any national team on the promontory of all time rank of extraordinary production Puskás was the leader and captain of the magical Hungarian 'Golden Team', the postwar re-inventing renaissance side that glows appraisable as statistically the 'Greatest Ever' (all time high 2232 Elo points); and when faith, hope, and promise around his determination's totem was needed after the 1956 Hungarian Revolt and Revolution he became the star main goalscorer at star-studded Real Madrid that outlined a great team that became the 'Greatest Ever' club franchise in the 20th Century (20th Century high 2069 Elo points).  He arrived to his second stunning career and this new powerful Real Madrid team after languishing in exile out of shape, overweight and without much practice in Italy and Spain aged 31 at a rounding time when most players think of retirement.

       Before Puskás Real Madrid had won the first three European Cups after the competition opened; after his arrival and on his retirement the Real Madrid team would win three more European Cups plus two runner-up silver medals in the tournament and a top division 'world championship' in 1960 after eight years of service with the top rated franchise of the 20th Century.   By his honored retirement in 1966 it could be well said that Puskás had journeyed through statistical records as the greatest ever offensive 'total-team' bandwidth power rocket player (1.48 Goals + Assists / 90 minutes) who has ever lived after a 22-year unprecedented career, road of adventure and life on the pitch who leaves all great on-field teams solved having beat every mountain tower steel diamond team with sports all time gloria with a prodigious vaunt of goals united to a near unreachable number of assists

        Under a radio and newly live televised age of roaring cheers and whistles of the greatest ever sides known, wholly in the midst of goalscoring prowess shouts three dynasties, Budapest Honvéd, Hungary and Real Madrid that forever changed and revolutionized and dominated football and amazing Puskás, needful to teams as elemental gist and key heaver, became the greatest top level offensive player of the ages.  And yet no action of any contemporary or other future player is as so well valuably efficient as the incomparable skills of Puskás.  

      With bursts of speed whose thoughts were summer lightning on the field with a waltz tune of expert control a strong scoring flair plays ever through them for teams have found nothing mightier than Puskás.  Puskás graces teams with octaves of unique skills and unimpeachable long big-play deft passing who brings the new wellspring and style to the association sport to help produce immense electric teams that grew athletically great and far more astonishing from what anyone supposed.  Puskás was extrovert, in him drifts of great pace and a daring highly competitive genius.  He was a rigorous player who showed like a banner his resilient and contriving wit who was possessed with every and all ingenuity that his keen brain matched his otherworldly accuracy to orient invigorating situations as the whole splendidly cavalier well-wheeled high scoring landscape rang and Victory looks gigantically up.

         Across it all in his total 719 official career top level matches Puskás-led teams held the banner true of a supreme emblematic figure of what most considered the qualities of an ideal team to be and in vigorous participations piled on the triumphs with every team he was on scoring 3.11 goals/career match as day occasions for Budapest Honvéd, Hungary and Real Madrid ordinarily became one-sided swept avalanching débâcles and tour de force routs with a win margin of +1.67 goals.  With the broad width and stage of world international football with Hungary where famous heralded games exacts long devotions from 1945-1956 in 83 'full internationals' the Hungarian teams that featured Puskás scored 337 goals to average 4.06 goals with a average win margin of +2.61 goals.     

       With Puskás the air is blue, crisp and prodigal and filled with victory's perfume with the three teams Puskás was on broadening outward as they crossed and re-crossed the pitch calling out for gain and in the activity and destiny of eleven performers where the very good, the best and the legended move fantastically, the art is long, turning loose the system of practiced skills for the new maneuver and the unconsciously coordinated acts and upsprang the near perfect team. 

           With teams of indeed mighty legitimate Olympian scope, match after match with strict inscrutable élan with scoring aura yielding to aura the three teams Puskás played on sparkle hot, outlasting all and were not detainable, kept creations at ease and moved more ways than one amid the palings of their rivals.  All fashion of opposing defending unable to douse the old witty one-two-three as Puskás chanced upon the spot and with his rotund body's full consent rend open the candescent heat, the unavoidable Puskás straight beam cannonball sizzling inside over decades of the thoroughly dominant.  

         It is no more in the legends than as if in some colossal sports drama all along postwar history everywhere on tournaments' geography and conning the new times from the large Cold War politics of the late 1940s, the entire soccer revolution made real by a new race of outdoor athletes with the 1949-1956 'Magical Magyars' to 1958-1966 Real Madrid's peerless compositions, top-flight football seemed to culminate to its crowning stage after its re-invention and set records still altogether unreached.  There among 20th Century lanes and paths at forward inside-left all postwar and 'modern football' took its cadence from Ferenc Puskás as the game found the tremendous power rocket player as the captain of the near invincible Hungarian 'Golden Team' that pronounced 'total-team' 'socialist football' chic and outmoded it all and as the key goalscorer at Real Madrid, Puskás' extraordinary double career flashing between gold levels presided over dream teams of the most elevated players and illustrated what it was to play the game accurately as a vision of joy and perfection.  

           During a busy decade of a difficult rebuilding world in the postwar era in the arc light and formative glow of nascent mass media with a global reach and increasingly networked newswires at the dawn of live television that meet audiences as never before made possible a new kind of connectedness and a new kind of culture that is called 'popular culture'.  Around this time Puskás became the game's first superstar both at league and in the world game who foreruns the likes of Alfredo Di Stéfano, Pelé, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona and it was Puskás who first spoke to and for this new era as his 'Golden Team' re-invented the game and telecommunications effectively shrank the world. 

      Mentally striding in to take the lead Puskás became an expert in the management of matches that revealed his calling as the darling 'golden boy' of the regime in communist Hungary.  Many thought that no one had a keener relish for the texture of the game than Puskás whose agile intellect came with a precocious talent at an early age making the national team all of eighteen as a supreme possessor with a heroic scoring indulgence on the ball that succeeded in catching the eye of Europe.

       Much of what Puskás would come to stand for was determined long before his playing days at Real Madrid.  Before the 'Golden Age' of soccer in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s properly declared itself, Puskás, armed with his rhapsodic talent, matchless whistling fastball and insights in the Budapest Kispest team before he reached ripe manhood's brink of twenty-one years showed his true worth scoring 50 goals in 31 matches in the league to lead all players in the world.   At present by the 1948-year Puskás had set the current of opinion that he had qualified as one of the elites in the game.   His well-known journey at Kispest-Honvéd saw Puskás score 358 goals out of his 350 games that effected an immense enlargement for the club's international prestige and elaborated a climax of Budapest Honvéd as the finest club side in the world before Real Madrid and the Brazilian Santos.  Already an initial career like this would have culminated with a first entry into Europe's pantheon of all time greats.  

       He is both extraordinary in the theme of his world-famed classics that are among the most colorful parts of the mid-century and in the amassed work of his throughput and succeeded in catching the flavor of a time and place in European history the sport shall never see again.  The career of Puskás that stretched across the whole modern post-war period showed how a truly great player can reflect the varying developments of his age yet maintain an unmistakable individual sovereignty, unique and inimitable.      

      He had intuition with extra sensory awareness to grasp other sides' nuances with novel thinking and an encompassing eye in less than fifteen minutes of play by issuing a stream of instructions to align the team and in his younger years often yelling at players many years his senior as a 'playing coach’ solving ever-changing game vistas on the run.  He had legendary assured urbanity and a smartness during the match's commotion and flux joined to the feel and rippling strength of his left leg that prized out the tightest defenses from distance done with a rocketed ball of honed dexterity.

A defining moment: the un-whistled and uncalled illegal flagrant rough mid-air interference foul on goalkeeping Gyula Grosics by Hans Schäfer in the 18th minute that tackled and brought down Grosics to the turf.  Since Grosics was unfairly tackled the ill-guarded goal was scored upon by Rahn seconds later to re-make an ascendant 2-0 Magical Magyars lead into a heavily contested 2-2 match in the highest rated match of the 20th Century, the 1954 World Cup Final title game.

         Puskás was a match symphony-maker, a conspicuous student of the game and a teacher of athletes and his presence was soon felt at Budapest Kispest in the 1945-46 year where he scored 36 goals in 34 matches as a future player that legend could sing of as a paragon of vitality bringing happiness directed by a wily uomo universale of renaissance dreams who became the sport's first world superstar. 

        Very few players had careers or stories to tell quite like Puskás for a number of occasions.  In all that reporting of his career a common thread in playing days that made him unique, simply that there is an air of the precious about almost all that he did, a glinting Midas touch, everything he touched on the field turned to gold in his life's work.  Puskás only played on three teams: Budapest Kispest-Honvéd, Hungary and Real Madrid, three teams that were to take turns in dominating his life amid their greatest successes in golden periods of their own with an elegant yet fiery competitor with gracious outgoing gentlemanly manners whose career crackled with re-inventive life.        

      After three leading parts of the gigantic career oeuvre of Puskás and beyond as one who distinguished himself favorably in managing teams on five continents, Puskás' life runs into many stories and Puskás' own personal journey is an entire odyssey.  Not far from the roars of duty on the pitch Puskás was also somebody famously known to a great many people having managed on five continents and his coaching career takes a different telling.       

       How little the formative years sometimes tell about an individual's potentialities is exemplified by the fact that Puskás, who was known as Öcsi ('Sonny' or 'Little Kid Brother') in his youth were he mastered the game with a liberated intelligence and talent during the hardscrabble interwar years would lead a life of creativeness and wit, be involved in three of the most stupendous matches of the century from start to finish immersed in the atmosphere of the sensational that caused him to be ranked among the most celebrated players of all time and become a great sports figure of the classic past.  

         A whole generation will best remember Puskás as a great master player associated with five prestigious European Cup ('Champions League')' title matches while paired with iconic club players Alfredo Di Stéfano and Francisco Gento at Real Madrid.  Playing alongside Di Stéfano and Gento from 1958-1964 Puskás was primarily the best and most effective top-flight goalscorer on the 20th Century's highest ranked top league team.  By their insatiable passion and many dashes of brilliance showing more always in leading men by their hardworking exampling talents made these three energetic masters of the sport all time eminences.  With three such famous steerers piloting events who met problems and dealt with solutions to set things right and doing the kinds of things that others could not Real Madrid reached heights with an insuperable pre-eminence over teams at the Bernabéu Stadium that defined the greatest league 'home-field advantage' in history after Puskás surpassed England's 90-year old legacy in 1953.

        Another generation will joyously recall Puskás for his goals and enduring exploits with Budapest Honvéd and the Hungarian 'Golden Team' while teamed with Sándor Kocsis and Nándor Hidegkuti.  There alongside Hidegkuti and Sándor Kocsis, Puskás formed the most powerful and greatest scoring trio and winning partnership in all international soccer history.   Superlative big wins with Hungary in 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956 became a revelation to the people of some great ecstatic sports order and were so shapely and heralded victories a whole new reinvented vision, an entire new conception seemed contained in those games that football became stronger, richer and more varied.          

--- 'The Golden Team', 1945-1956 ---

*****  Hungarian Rhapsody ***** ***** 49 Consecutive Games Undefeated ***** Win Percentage: 95 %   Undefeated Percentage: 100 %  Matches Wins Draws Losses Score For Score Ag. Score Diff. 49 44 5 0 +4.33 -1.22 +3.11  From June 4, 1950 - February 18, 1956 (1954 World Cup Final Not Included)

' The Magical Magyars | The Mighty Magyars | The Magnificent Magyars | The Light Calvary '

      The postwar renaissance age demanded a sports heralded game-changing powerhouse that was absolutely modern, winsome in approach and prim of no compromise and take-charging revolutionary as never before to resolutely outplay, outvie and brave the greatest teams of the era. 

       From the world war's nadir in 1945 to the sport's zenith in 1956 and in 1966 with Real Madrid all postwar teams with Ferenc Puskás that rumbled along had grown élite to maximal strength from the earliest days immediately following the war in August of 1945 that by 1966 had overtopped all world-class teams of steel; — in the beginning the 'Golden Team', a huge bombardment of flexible key heavers of Puskás-Kocsis-Hidegkuti-Bozsik-Czibor that also reigned with a revolutionary Gyula Grosics-quarterbacked 'Iron Curtain' defense for seven years had outvied the old vintage pre-war game as his oracle renaissance national team forever re-invented soccer in the 'new era'. 

       Entered to race, the rainmaker magnifico gold of their ample goals like sporting catholic bells tolling this 'Golden Team' appeared with Ferenc 'Sonny' Puskás' debut and whose race began on August 20th ('Saint Stephen's Day') in 1945 in Budapest against world-ranked No. 7 Austria where Puskás scored first in a very big 5-2 win and as a full team by decade's end in 1949 — it's a national sports treasure utilization of Olympian dreams with the immensity of history-molding numbers of never attainable praise in rhapsody of the unbeatable charm of the magical Hungarian 'Golden Team' of excellently and cleverly playing appropriate players amid a whirlwind of golden sound and thrilling roars of huge audiences with climatic, unpriceable sensational scoring action who got the beauty of 'the beautiful game' right and tremendous.      

       From the world war's closing welter and turmoil Ferenc Puskás, who arrived to the national 'beautiful game' aged but eighteen as a charming and intelligent young man with Nándor Hidegkuti ('The Elder') in 1945, Ferenc 'Bamba' Deák in 1946, midfield all-time iron man József Bozsik and Midas goalkeeper Gyula Grosics in 1947, the bona fide natural aerial header and shooter Sándor Kocsis in 1948 and Zoltán Czibor ('The Mad Winger') in 1949 they alighted a groundbreaking hard-charging cheer-bringing game of spectacular passages brandishing beauty bolts of speed, finesse, true vigor and players of multi-sided genius and the hardest scoring bandwidth that has found no peer.  By May 1953 it is the most powerful team in the world.         

       Exultantly performed as by vast composers 35.59% (+1/3) of their 59 matches (omitting the 1954 World Cup Final match) from 1949 to 1956 were won by 5 goals or more in débâcles and tour de force routs with an average win margin of +3.19 goals/game with an abundant heraldic prodigious vault of goals.  Bred east of the mountains the decisively highest scoring and highest rated team (2232 Elo points) of all time; Puskás' dashing men of the Danube who grew up beyond the mountains from central Europe that is ultimately the 'Greatest Ever Association Football Team' in substance and surroundings with ease to enter the checkered mass attack full of thundering scoring tide with a prim defense that can battle and answer ran more melodious in hours prophetic with a triumphant tutti beyond what gorgeous summer knows for a 9-year historic, athletic, record-breaking reign of sports' precedents.

       At Hungary in 1949 a new socialist health takes hold of an already powerful Puskás-led Hungarian team primed with new plot and rhyme as head manager Gustáv Sebes rebuilt it with a finer forge of goal besetting tactics and a very good goalkeeper-bulwarked defense that led the soccer world for seven years as the star-studded 'Golden Team' of hammering goalscoring bravado.            

      The triple honor and prize-winning beam of Ferenc Puskás ('Sonny', 'The Galloping Major', 83 goals), Sándor Kocsis ('The Man With The Golden Head', 75 goals), the specialists Nándor Hidegkuti ('The Elder', 'The Playing Father of Total Football', 39 goals) and super-substitute Péter Palotás (18 goals), earlier great Ferenc Deák ('Bamba', 29 goals) and later the master apprentice the good striker Lajos Tichy ('The Nation's Bomber', 51 goals) rammed them into a roaring juggernaut where a central enigma had been formed by the fabulous team of capital reserves: — the alluring false No. 9 cunningly withdrawn new motion ace metronome cracksmen of Péter Palotás and Nándor Hidegkuti, who like half engineers and keys open hundreds of doors of space to exploit and disorder accustomed defenses with prelude, chicane and timed chance runs.  There these great players of skill, talents superb in technique fade other teams in new strengths, unhampered team mobility and tactical rigors of the polyvalent 3-2-5/3-2-1-4/4-2-4 formation in 'socialist football's' stronger existence charged with unrelenting and unalterable winning outscoring pathos.

      In 'Magical Magyar' glide laid an absolute team totality simultaneity concert of purely-proceeding spirits in original concord energy, the prodigal national players of the people heroically a-blazing with unmatchable athletic esprit and élan scoring 4.36 goals/game (from May 1949 to February 1956 in 59 matches) that they conquered their field of aim and endowed the worldwide famous team with the glows and renowned glories of cosmic and dynamic features. 

      Of the crowds of great teams who came and went aloud in the raptured ears of men beheld Puskás' Hungarian 'Golden Team' within the circuit of European football there entering a seven-year reign of a national Hungarian side that was peerlessly the best team of them all during a doctrinaire and the most extravagant and cavalier age, but Puskás and his strike partner Sándor Kocsis transformed them as 'statistically the greatest ever'. 

' The Match of the Century '  The Historic Hallmark Visionary Wastershed Landmark ' World Championship Decider '         Match Attendance: 105,0000 November 25, 1953 in London.
The Divine Titan Near Perfect Maximum Team of All Time						'The Golden Team' May 8, 1949 to Nov. 24, 1953
Wins	Ties	Loss	Goals/Match	Goal Diff./Match		Wins	Ties	Loss	Goals/Match	Goal Diff./Match
36	3	0	5.23	+4.20		26	6	1	4.27	+3.18
Win Percentage: 96.15%   Undefeated Percentage: 100% All Time Since 1863						Win Percentage: 87.88%  Undefeated Percentage: 96.97%

Hungary 6 : 3 England

(Hidegkuti 1', 20', 53' | Puskás 24', 27' + 2 Assists | Bozsik 50')

Puskás scored 2 goals and made 2 assists and became the world record holder for most national goals with 60 goals in 50 internationals.

Hungary 7 : 1 England

(Lantos 10' | | Puskás 17', 71' + 1 Assist | Kocsis 19', 57' | Hidegkuti  59' | J. Tóth 63')