The Magical Magyars – The Birth Of Total Football?
While people often say that politics and football should not be mixed, politics has often given the world the best teams to marvel at. Real Madrid’s dominance in Europe began as one of the first sportswashing exercises, for example. It was politics that gave us arguably the greatest national team of all time, Hungary’s Golden Team, or Magical (Magnificent or Mighty) Magyars. They were a political football, if you will excuse the poor jest, for the communist regime in Hungary to show just how effective communism could be. Even the way they played the game was described as “socialist football” by their manager. But what cannot be argued with was just how good they were.
This was the team that has scored the highest score ever recorded by a national team on the Elo rating system, when they hit a peak of 2232 points on 30 June 1954. Between 1950 and 1956, they played 69 games, winning 58, drawing 10 and lost just once. They scored 436 goals in those 69 matches! If ever there is a team that earnt the tag of ‘great’, it is the Aranycsapat, or Golden Team, as there were known in their native Hungary. This despite the political situation meaning that Gustav Sebes did not even have two of the nation’s better players available to him as Laszlo Kubala and Istvan Nyers were playing abroad.
The roots of the team’s greatness can be traced back long before the 1950s. In fact they go back to before the First World War and to an English player called Jimmy Hogan. He had decided to teach Europeans how to play the game and so, after retiring from playing, he had gone over to the continent and embarked on a coaching career. By the time that WWI began, Hogan was coaching in Austria. He was woken at dawn on the day that war was declared and thrown into prison and interned for the duration of the hostilities.
At the time Austria-Hungary was still a single empire and he was allowed to go to Hungary and work with MTK. There he introduced his theories to Hungarian football of every player being able to play in all positions and moving away from having players specifically man-marking one player. Instead his players would swap positions and adapt to the game as it developed, while his opponents would be dragged out of position trying to man-mark. Hogan also worked on making his players comfortable with the ball, he would ask them to make the ball do the work and liked them to do step-overs and little twists and turns on the ball.
His methods worked so well that MTK were national champions under him and, even after he left to return to England after the war had ended, they continued to practice his way of playing. Hogan’s return to England was not so happy, he was treated appallingly by the English FA (not for the last time) and he ended up returning to MTK in 1925. The next few years he worked with Marton Bukovi, before leaving again in 1927. Bukovi continued to develop on Hogan’s ideas, later developing the 4-2-4 formation which was so successful for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup. Before that though, he continued to move away from the WM formation, taking ideas from the successful Austrian Wunderteam of the 1930s when his target man centre-forward was sold. Instead of just replacing like-for-like (though partly because there was no straight replacement in the team), Bukovi later experimented with Peter Palotas as a deep-lying centre-forward – a position we would now call a false 9 – which had been so useful to Austria’s great team of the time.
Hungary, in those years between the two world wars, had a decent national team, reaching the quarter final of the 1934 World Cup, where they were knocked out by the great Austrian Wunderteam. The following edition saw them go even further into the competition, reaching the final, but losing it to Italy. Then the war intervened once more.
Following the Second World War, Hungary was brought into the communist bloc, gradually. It took them fully four years to take over, but in 1949 the communist parties won 97% of the vote in elections and Matyas Rakosi’s regime began. It was a Stalinist regime, with secret police, show trials, disappearances, murders and the end of free speech, but Rakosi also began a drive for national sporting excellence. No players from the top two tiers were permitted to move abroad to play and the national side would take precedence over club football.
Gusztav Sebes, who had been Deputy Minister for Sport and chair of Hungary’s Olympic committee, was appointed head of a 3-man coaching committee that ran the Hungarian national football team. Sebes, known affectionately to the players as Uncle Guszhi, was appointed due to his political leanings, rather than his footballing CV. Before the war, he had been a trade union organiser at Renault, in Paris, where he led demonstrations. He has also been a trade union organiser in Budapest in the 1920s, once organising a strike at the factory he worked at, looking for fairer pay. He had been a player with Hungaria FC, winning three league titles and also played for three other teams during his playing days. He also had one cap for the national team. After the war, he was involved in the restructure of the Hungarian FA.
The other main candidates did not have his political connections, though both had excellent footballing credentials. One was Bela Guttman, who would later discover Eusebio and also introduce the 4-2-4 to Brazil while coaching in the nation. That would go on to be the basis of the 1970 World Cup winning team. He also would go on to win the European Cup twice with Benfica. The other was Marton Bukovi, who was probably the originator of that formation. But neither could compare to Sebes when the Communist Party decided to replace Tibor Gallowich as head of the national team, Sebes was one of their own and his whole philosophy of the game was based on his socialist beliefs: “The bitter struggle between capitalism and communism is fought out not only between our societies, but also on the pitch.” He was the ideal candidate, having powerful, influential friends such as Janos Kadar, a former Communist Party leader and member of the Hungarian politburo. They had played youth football together.
While Sebes was in charge, he also recognised the need to bring in the best he could to work with him and brought in Bukovi and Gyula Mandi onto the staff. They had a large input into the way of playing, which became a flexible system, which is variously described as 2-3-3-2 or 3-2-3-2 or even 3-2-3-2, showing just how flexible it was in practice. It was just after Bukovi had switched to playing with a ‘false 9’ with his club side Voros Lobogo, after the club sold his centre-forward to Lazio in 1948. His choice of Palotas was also the initial choice for the national side. But, as well as the staff having a large input, the players themselves were given freedom to change the tactics mid-game. Jeno Buzanszky would say later that Ferenc Puskas, Nandor Hidegkuti and Joszef Bozsik were “our computers” and that they would routinely read the pattern of the game in the first 15 minutes, discovering the opposition team’s weaknesses and then come up with a strategy to exploit those weaknesses. Bela Guttman, later to lead Benfica to two European Cup wins, also worked as part of the back room staff for a while. The goalkeeper, Gyula Grosics, was to act as a sweeper, even being referred to as the ‘fourth back’ at times.
“Though all six of us [Joszef Bozsik, Zoltan Czibor, Budai, Puskas, Kocsis and himself] could attack, we never played in a line formation. If I went forward, Puskas dropped back. If Kocsis drifted wide, Bozsik moved into the middle. There was always space to play the ball into….we constantly changed positions, so where we lined up at kick-off was irrelevant.” – Nandor Hidegkuti.
Sebes also brought in a fitness regime for his players, with a rigorous training programme that allowed his players to outrun, outpass and outplay their opposition. The players would undertake a warm up before training and matches, something that would amaze England when they faced them. Frequent swimming sessions were introduced into the training regime to increase the player’s lung power and medical experts were brought in to explain the negative effects of cigarettes and alcohol. Team bonding sessions were not the standard drinking binges that were commonplace in England, instead they would visit museums and art galleries together. They would also often visit factories across Hungary to boost the workers there.
Another key to the strength of this great team was something Sebes had learnt from the two great sides of the 1930s. Both Italy and Austria would pick the core of their side from just a couple of club sides, so that the players were used to playing together and knew each others games. Italy had built their team around Juventus and Torino players under Vittorio Pozzo and Hugo Meisl’s Austrian Wunderteam was built around players from Rapid and Austria Vienna. Sebes could take it a bit further than Italy and Austria were able to do, because the regime was behind him, and one thing a dictatorship is good at is getting things done.
First the army decided to have its own team. Ferencvaros was dismissed, though the biggest club in the country, due to being traditionally right-wing leaning. Instead they chose to take over a small team called Kispest, which already had two of the team in situ in the shape of Puskas and Bozsik. Kispest was now renamed Honved and recruited the top players in the country by the simple expedient of conscripting them and offering them the choice of heading to the border with a rifle or playing for Honved! In the early days, in order to maintain the facade of it being an army unit, the players were given ranks, uniforms and were housed in an army barracks. That is where Puskas got the nickname of the ‘Galloping Major’ came from. The second domestic recruitment hotbed was quickly created by the secret police, who took over a team for themselves, MTK.
Sebes cast the net far and wide to bring in the best, though limited to just players within the borders of Hungary, he still had extraordinary powers at his disposal. His chosen goalkeeper was Gyula Grosics, who was banned after attempting to defect. The ban was lifted and he was brought back into the fold. Gyula Lorant was in a labour camp, after attempting to form a team to get out of the country. He was also brought back into the team. Jeno Buzanszky was spotted playing in the tiny northern town of Dorog. There was also a search for youngsters for the long term, which unearthed a trio of teenagers – Zoltan Czibor, Sandor Kocsis and Laszlo Budai. Only Nandor Hidegkuti, of the main members of the team, played somewhere other than MTK or Honved.
The communist puppet regime in Hungary saw the team as a propaganda tool, to showcase the efficacy of communism. They emphasised that it was all about teamwork and every role’s importance to the team was highlighted. The players could not be paid as footballers, so that they would be eligible for the Olympics, which was still for amateurs only. Instead, the players were given ministerial posts in the Hungarian government. That gave them a salary that was five times the pay of the average Hungarian worker of the time, though it was still not a living wage.
A national scouting network was set up and Hungarian coaches were all brought on board the project, with the objectives explained to them, which made it easier for the national team to play friendlies and hold weekly training sessions. Ahead of international matches, Sebes would often organise warm-up games against local club sides, who were instructed to adopt the tactics of the upcoming opponent.
Sebes’ reign began with a 5-2 defeat to Czechoslovakia, which aided the changeover to the new style, as it brought everybody on board with it. Puskas later wrote in his autobiography that: “After that game, the issue could no longer be avoided. Hungary had to evolve an entirely new method of play if we were to make any headway in international football.” Sometimes a loss can be better for the long term than a win, as the ‘Magical Magyars’ and their new way of playing might never have happened if Sebes had started with a win.
“Instead of the magic square of half-backs and inside-forwards playing themselves into a state of exhaustion, it was decided the work should be shared out amongst the team. Attack and defence should work harmoniously as one.” – Puskas.
With a trip to the 1950 World Cup in Brazil out of reach due to a lack of funds, the target was the Olympics in 1952. To aid the Olympics team as a whole, Sebes persuaded the government to build a central sports complex.
The new style of football produced immediate results, with the next 8 matches resulting in 6 wins and 2 draws, including a 5-0 win over Czechoslovakia in Budapest. But it was brought to a grinding result against bitter rivals Austria in May 1950. It was that defeat which made Sebes have Grosics brought back from exile, transferred to Honved and back into the national team. They would not lose again for over 4 years.
June 1950 saw them thrash Poland 5-2 in a friendly game in Warsaw, Puskas netting a brace and Gyula Szilagyi got himself a hat-trick. The summer was one of rest for Hungary, as they missed out on the World Cup in Brazil, but they returned to action in September by thrashing Albania 12-0, Puskas picking up 4 in that game, as did Laszlo Budai. The following month they gained revenge on Austria with a 4-3 win, Puskas this time scored a hat-trick. Their final game of 1950 was in November and they drew 1-1 with Bulgaria.
The following year started with Poland taking a 6-0 beating, Czechoslovakia were disposed of 2-1, Finland slaughtered 8-0, Poland then took a 5-1 hammering and Finland lost again but this time by a mere 6 goals to 1, to round off the year.
Hungary arrived at the Helsinki Olympic games in 1952 having been unbeaten in 2 years, which made them very much amongst the favourites. They strolled into the semi-finals beating first Romania 2-1, then Italy 3-0 and a 7-1 thrashing of Turkey. In the semis they were to face the defending Olympic champions, Sweden. The Swedes were no match for Hungary and were overwhelmed, Hungary smashing them aside with a 6-0 win.
The final was a politically charged affair as Hungary were to face Yugoslavia, whose dictator Josip Tito had split with Stalin’s Eastern Bloc just 4 years earlier. They Yugoslavs had already beaten the Soviet Union in the first round, which meant that the Communist Party in Hungary saw it as a matter of pride. Once again Hungary were just too good for their opponent and got the gold medal thanks to a 2-0 win courtesy of goals from Ferenc Puskas and Zoltan Czibor. Czibor ended the tournament as top scorer with 6 goals.
“It was during the Olympics that our football first started to flow with real power. It was a prototype of total football; when we attacked, everyone attacked. In defence it was just the same.” – Puskas.
Not everyone was impressed by the Hungarian performance, especially amongst the English, who still perceived themselves as the best in the world. Daily Telegraph correspondent Frank Coles reported that an English club fighting for points in midwinter would run through Hungary, just after they won the gold. This was even though an all-star England team had been humiliated just two years previously in the World Cup when they lost to an amateur USA side. It had failed to deflate their superiority complex. Instead, FA chairman Stanley Rous, after watching Hungary demolish Sweden in the semi-final, invited his Hungarian counterpart, Sandor Barcs, who had been sat next to him, to bring the team over for a friendly at Wembley. Where, no doubt, they would be taught a lesson in how to play football by the English.
“If we beat the English at Wembley, our names will be legendary.” – Sebes.
In the meantime, the team traveled home on the train with the rest of the Hungarian Olympic squad, which had managed to finish 3rd in the overall medal table behind just the USA and Soviet Union. The journey was interrupted at stations by crowds as it neared Budapest, where 400,000 people lined the streets to welcome home their returning heroes.
“On the train home, once we left Prague, the train kept stopping at every station to allow crowds to greet us. The scenes at Keleti station when we arrived in Budapest were unbelievable. There were so many people crammed into the surrounding streets to celebrate! We were ecstatic. That was our first great victory and our hearts were still so young.” – Puskas.
They were soon back in action and, just 6 weeks after the Olympic final, they beat the Swiss 4-2, coming back from being two goals down, in the Central European International Cup. They had been on the verge of losing their 14-game unbeaten run before Sebes swapped Hidegkuti into the false 9 role, in place of Palotas. It changed the game and Hidegkuti became the first choice from then on. They ended 1952 with a record of 10 played, 10 wins.
In May 1953 they returned to action in the Central European International Cup, a competition for nations in Central Europe which would evolve into the European Championships. On the 17th, they played Italy in the final. Two goals from Puskas and one from Hidegkuti saw them lift the cup in the inaugural match in Rome’s Olympic Stadium. Hungary now had a settled first XI consisting of Gyula Grosics, Jeno Buzanszky, Gyula Lorant, Mihaly Lantos, Jozsef Bozsik, Jozsef Zakarias, Laszlo Budai, Nandor Hidegkuti, Zoltan Czibor, Sandor Kocsis and Ferenc Puskas.
Immediately after winning the cup, Sebes began his preparations for facing England. They began by switching to the heavier type of ball that was used in England at the time. They organised a training camp near Lake Balaton and a warm weather retreat to Egypt. In September they were held to a 1-1 draw by Bulgaria in Sofia. Two weeks before they faced England, Sweden visited Budapest for a warm up game. Sweden’s coach, Englishman George Raynor, spotted that Hidegkuti made Hungary tick in his deep-lying position and man-marked him for the full game. The game ended in a 2-2 draw and Reynolds stated afterwards that it was Hidegkuti, not Puskas or Kocsis, that you needed to stop. Unfortunately, England manager Walter Winterbottom was not paying attention.
Due to the Iron Curtain between East and West European nations, the game had been extremely difficult to arrange. The Hungarian government had demanded guarantees from Sebes that they would win. The Hungarian squad arrived in London accompanied by two ‘assistant trainers’, who were actually secret police. On their first night, Sebes took them to see a West End show “to improve our English”, he said. He chose a revue called Pardon My French, which was advertised as “A Bust and Belly Epic … Girls with Sequins and Girls Without”.
The following day the English press were introduced to Joseph Bozsik, who was also an MP, and Ferenc Puskas, who was the squad’s captain. Puskas told them: “We will win.” He failed to convince the English press, who predicted a win for England:
“England to win – but it should be close.” – Daily Worker.
“England can beat Hungary inside ten minutes.” – Daily Express.
“They will rock those magical Magyars back on their heels right from the opening whistle.” – Sunday Express.
“Hungary’s superb ball-jugglers can be checked by a little firm tackling.” – Frank Coles in The Telegraph.
England had never been defeated on home soil by a team from outside of the British Isles (the one home defeat had come at the hands of the Republic of Ireland in 1949). They were sure that, as inventors of the game, their players were tactically and technically superior to other countries. At the time, November 1953, England were ranked number 3 in the world and Hungary were number 1. The British press dubbed the game as “the Match of the Century”. There is a rumour that an English player, who was never named, was watching the Hungary warm up and spotted Puskas, who was short and rotund, and said to a teammate, “Look at that fat little chap. We’ll murder this lot.”
While the English team were watching in astonishment as the Hungarians did their pre-match warm up, their boots were noticed. The standard now, but low cut boots were not used in England back then. England captain Billy Wright, the David Beckham of his day, spotted the boots and whispered to a teammate, “we should be all right here Stan – they haven’t even got a proper kit.”
After the coin toss, Puskas and Czibor juggled the ball between themselves to get a feel for the ball, common practice in Hungary but considered showing off in England. The 105,000 packed into Wembley settled in to watch England hand out a footballing lesson, only to find it was the other way round. Within a minute of kick-off, Hungary had taken the lead and were 4-1 up after just 27 minutes. Despite the warnings from Raynor, England coach Walter Winterbottom had allowed centre-half Harry Johnston to decide if wanted to man-mark or stand off Hidegkuti. Johnston wanted to stand off, so Hidegkuti was left unmarked, which worked so well that Hidegkuti scored a hat-trick. The first of his goals right at the start when he feinted a free kick on the edge of the box, drawing Johnston out of his position in the wall and he then shot through the gap.
At half-time, Johnston moaned: “If I follow him into midfield, then I leave myself exposed at the back, but if I stay where I am, he is unmarked to do as he damn well pleases!” It was not just Hidegkuti who was embarrassing the England players, with Wright being completely sent the wrong way by Puskas for the third goal, as the Hungarian drew the ball back with the sole of his foot. Wright “rushed past him like a fire engine going to the wrong fire” according to The Times correspondent Geoffrey Green.
After receiving a battering in the first half, Winterbottom decided the only hope for England was to play even more of the ‘English Way’ – fast and full blooded. Unfortunately, Hungary’s training methods had made them faster, fitter and stronger than their English opponents and England failed miserably to impose themselves on the Hungarians physically. Hungary’s 5th goal came while Billy Wright and Stan Mortensen were off the pitch receiving treatment following their attempts to be more physical.
In the end, the final score of 6-3 massively flattered England. They had managed just 5 shots in total, compared to Hungary’s 35. England winger Tom Finney described the game as being akin to “race horses against cart horses”, while his teammate, defender Syd Owen, described it as “football from another planet”. England were simply unable to live with the movement, fluidity and flexibility of the Hungarian team. Czibor, nominally Hungary’s outside left, provided an assist via a cut-back from the right flank. After the match, a chastened Frank Cole wrote in the Daily Telegraph that Hungary were now the masters of the sport. At the end, Wembley rose as one to give the Hungarians a standing ovation.
England had “found themselves strangers in a strange world, a world of flitting red spirits, for such did the Hungarians seem as they moved at devastating pace with superb skill and powerful finish in their cherry bright shirts.” – Geoffrey Green in The Times.
Jimmy Hogan, with a group of Aston Villa youth players that he was now coaching, was in the stands to watch the masterclass. When the English press found out that Hogan had been in large part responsible for Hungary’s breathtaking play, they began a campaign to have him coach the English team. Instead, FA officials treated Hogan as a traitor, though publicly they just ruled him out due to him being too old at 71.
“We played football as Jimmy Hogan taught us. When our football history is told, his name should be written in gold letters”. – Gusztav Sebes.
While The Times reported that: “The Hungarians shot with the accuracy of archers. It was Agincourt in reverse,” the FA differed in their reading of the game. In fact, in their FA Yearbook they actually described Hungary as just using the English style: “The Hungarians largely owed their victory to their mastering of the ‘English Style’ – interchanging forwards, a mingling of short and long passes, the same defensive tactics, but all performed with almost geometrical accuracy and ball control amounting to elegance. Apart from this they overcame the traditional Continental weakness at finishing and shot four of their six goals from outside the penalty area.”
Stanley Matthews had a slightly different reading of their style: “Hungary were combining two styles – the British all-running cut and thrust and the short passing game of probing infiltration much favoured by the South Americans. It was an imaginative combination of exacting ball control, speed of movement and esoteric vision that knitted together to formulate a style of football that was as innovative as it was productive. Long before the final whistle, the glory of our footballing past had been laid to rest.”
The England players were not so delusional in their reading of the manner of defeat, with Bobby Robson, who would later go on to manage England, saying: “That one game alone changed our thinking. The way they played, their technical brilliance and expertise – our WM formation was kyboshed in 90 minutes of football. The game had a profound effect, not just on myself but on all of us. We thought we would demolish this team – England at Wembley, we are the masters, they are the pupils. It was absolutely the other way.” Harry Johnston later wrote in his autobiography of his attempts to deal with Hidegkuti: “To me, the tragedy was the utter helplessness … being unable to do anything to alter the grim outlook.”
After the game against England, Hungary went to Egypt for a warm-weather training camp, where they increased their unbeaten run to 24. Bitter rivals Austria were up next, and a narrow win made it 25 in a row without defeat. In 1953, Hungary won 7 games out of the 8 they played throughout the year.
A return match against England was arranged for May 1954 in Budapest, a few weeks before the start of the 1954 World Cup. There was no redemption for England, who suffered the heaviest defeat in their history, a record that still stands to this day, as they were humiliated 7-1, stretching Hungary’s run to 26 without loss.
Hungary entered the World Cup in Switzerland as favourites, though they had not played a single match to qualify, due to Poland’s withdrawal. They were drawn into Group B, alongside Turkey, West Germany and South Korea. The tournament had an odd set up this year, which saw the teams play just two matches in the group stage. The seeded teams would face the two unseeded ones, in Group B Hungary and Turkey were the seeded pair. Even more oddly, games in the group stage that were level after 90 minutes went into extra time. A draw would only be accepted as the result if the game was still tied after 120 minutes! The top two teams were to go through to the next round. However if the second and third placed teams were level on points after the two games, they would have to play a decider.
West Germany had only been in existence for 4 years and had struggled to qualify against Norway and Saarland. Turkey had drawn a play-off match against Spain and made it into the tournament after the 14-year-old son of a stadium worker in Rome drew their name out of a hat. It was South Korea’s World Cup debut.
They opened their tournament against the debutants, demolishing the Koreans 9-0, with Kocsis netting a hat-trick. Kocsis added 4 more goals in the next match, as West Germany were brushed aside 8-3. However, that game had big consequences as the Germans, who had gone into the match with a weakened team as they expected defeat, got frustrated by the battering they were getting. The German response was to kick anything they could get near, particularly targeting Puskas, who was in imperious form at the time. English referee WIlliam Ling was turning a blind eye to the blatant fouls, as well as ignoring what onlookers believed were three clear penalty shouts. Then Puskas looked to spin away from his marker Liebrich on the halfway line, only for Liebrich to cynically boot him up into the air and leaving him with a hairline fracture of the ankle. It looked like his tournament was over and Hungary had 32 minutes left to play with ten men and a 5-1 lead. Brian Glanville was later to call it “the foul that won the World Cup”.
Another oddity of this particular tournament was that all the group winners were on one side of the draw, with the runners-up in the other. That meant that Hungary were to face the winners of Group 1, Brazil, in the quarter-finals, with the winner to take on the winners of the other match between Group 3 winners Uruguay and Group 4 winners England. Both Hungary and Brazil had a reputation for open, attacking football and so the game’s English referee Arthur Ellis was looking forward to it: “I thought it was going to be the greatest game I’d ever see. I was on top of the world. Whether politics and religion had something to do with it I don’t know, but they behaved like animals. It was a disgrace. It was a horrible match. In today’s climate so many players would have been sent off the game would have been abandoned. My only thought was that I was determined to finish it.” Ellis would later find fame on British TV as the referee on It’s A Knockout.
The game ended in a 4-2 victory for Hungary, but it was notable more for the violence on the pitch, which spilled into the players’ dressing rooms after the match. When Hungary strolled into a 2-0 lead after 7 minutes, the game deteriorated into a battle of fouls and fights. In a time of it taking a lot to even get booked, the game saw 3 red cards. Nilton Santos of Brazil and Josef Bozsik of Hungary were sent off after they started throwing punches at each other. At another point of the game, Brazilian Djalma Santos, spitting and gesticulating wildly, was chasing Zoltan Czibor around the pitch behind the ref’s back. Brazil’s Humberto Tozzi was the other man to get sent off, with just 4 minutes of the game left to play. Even the final whistle did not end the mayhem, with Swiss police desperately struggling to hold back pitch invaders, a bottle was thrown from the Hungarian bench (it was alleged that the injured Puskas threw it) which hit Pinheiro on the head. The whole Brazilian squad, including staff, invaded Hungary’s dressing room to continue the fight after they were all removed from the pitch. It first continued in the tunnel, a huge fight involving players, officials and even fans, with broken bottles and boots wielded as weapons. Czibor said later that there were “blood and fists everywhere”. Sebes was also hit in the face by a bottle and both him and Pinheiro needed stitches.
FIFA made no attempt to apply any kind of discipline, instead leaving it up to the countries themselves to decide what punishments to give the miscreants. Ellis said: “Fifa turned a blind eye. Too many committee members were afraid of losing trips to nice places. They were the only players I ever sent off who were never punished.” The game, which is now often referred to as the Battle of Berne, had 42 free kicks, 2 penalties, 4 yellow cards and 3 red cards, in an era where the tolerance for fouling was much higher. Sebes later described the game as a “brutal, savage” match.
Next up, it was the semi-final against defending world champions Uruguay, who had never lost a World Cup match in their history, winning the two previous tournaments they had entered. Hungary would be lining up still without captain Puskas, but Bozsik was clear to play despite his red card in the previous round. Uruguay had strolled into the semi-final, having beaten Czechoslovakia 2-0, thrashing an excellent Scottish team 7-0 (at that time Scotland were one of the strongest nations), then cruising past England 4-2.
Despite missing Puskas, Hungary took the lead in the first half, then doubled their lead right after the restart. Uruguay responded well and Hungary faced wave after wave of attack but conceded one to Juan Hohberg with 15 minutes left to play. Uruguay continued to attack and Hohberg got his, and Uruguay’s, second in the 86th minute to send the game into extra-time. Despite the momentum being with Uruguay, Hungary seemed much fresher in the 30 minutes of added time and they eventually retook the lead in the second half of extra-time. Once more, with just 4 minutes to play, another goal was scored, but this time it was Hungary sealing their win over Uruguay 4-2, to hand the South Americans their first ever defeat in a World Cup.
The final saw the Hungarians face West Germany once more, though a stronger side than the one they had faced in the group stage as there would be no more resting players to avoid injuries for the Germans. Ahead of the final, Sebes was worried about how his players would handle the game: “Our greatest enemy is not so much physical fatigue as nervous tension. I never suspected that the World Cup could be such a test of nerves.” Hungary entered the game unbeaten in their last 32 games, in fact since August 1949 they had won 34, drawn 6 and lost just 1 match. They had already beaten the Germans 8-3 in the first round as well, but Puskas was still not fully fit following the damage done to him in that match. Sebes decided to risk picking the captain anyway.
There were a number of factors against the Hungarians. Firstly, they had been forced to battle (literally at times) to get through to the final, while the Germans had been able to pretty much stroll through the quarter and semi final matches. The pitch was heavy, the rain made it difficult and strength sapping and the Hungarians had struggled to get any sleep the night before due to the Swiss national battle-of-the-bands taking place in the same town as the one they were based in. Not only that, they had not even arrived back at their hotel until 4am on the Saturday morning, with the final taking place on Sunday. Puskas claimed that: “We were not at all refreshed, but nearer a state of nervous exhaustion.” To add to all that, William Ling was once again in charge and would once more make a series of questionable decisions. The Germans also had the advantage of revolutionary new screw-in studs in their adidas boots, which gave much better traction than traditional boots.
Despite all of that, taking a chance on Puskas seemed to pay off when he opened the scoring after just 6 minutes. A couple of minutes later, Czibor made it 2-0. No team before or since has ever held a two goal lead in a World Cup final and failed to win it. That was why this later become known as the “Miracle of Bern” by the Germans, as they managed to pull it back to 2-2 before half-time. It was not without controversy though, Hungary goalkeeper Gyula Grosics was allegedly obstructed on the equaliser. Though Hungary poured forward, attacking in waves from the start of the second half, Germany keeper Toni Turek kept them out, pulling off a number of good saves. With just 6 minutes left, Helmut Rahn scored his second to give Germany the lead. It looked short-lived, as four minutes later Puskas equalised, only for it to be ruled out for offside: “I got an equaliser right at the death but that Welsh linesman Griffiths….disallowed it for offside. Even the English ref Billy Ling had given it.” In the final minute Kocsis felt he was fouled in the penalty area, but again Ling gave nothing.
The controversy did not stop there, as there were needles found in the West German dressing room after the game. Team doctor Franz Loogen claimed they had just injected vitamin C supplements into the players, but the fact that the injections were done secretly makes that claim dubious, at best. Also, the players who were injected contracted jaundice and it would have been easier to just eat something such as an orange to get vitamin C anyway. Evidence pointed towards a stimulant that had been commonly distributed to German soldiers during World War 2, called pervitin. It is a form of mephamphetamine and a 2008 study by Humboldt University uncovered a culture of doping in German sports over a 20 year period with full knowledge of sports officials, doctors and senior politicians, all funded by taxpayers money!
None of that was of any use to Hungary though and the anger was such within the country that the team were not permitted to return to Budapest for their own safety. Instead, they were sent to a training camp in Tata to wait for things to calm down. Rumours swirled around the capital that the players had thrown the game in return for a Mercedes each. Sebes’ son was beaten up at school. Puskas took a large portion of the blame. Riots broke out across the country and the homes of the players and Sebes had to be guarded by police. There were even rumours that Sebes had only picked Mihaly Toth as he was Sebes’ son-in-law. The rumour totally ignored the fact that Sebes’ only daughter was just 10 years old and definitely not married.
The players were branded as traitors and suffered abuse, they also lost all the privileges they had previously enjoyed as national heroes. Goalkeeper Gyula Grosics was the first to suffer. In the past, officials would turn a blind eye when players smuggled back items from away trips to sell on the black market. Grosics was placed under house arrest on charges of espionage after he asked a teammate to bring back a box of hairpins. Espionage carried the death penalty! He spent 15 months imprisoned over it. Sebes was the one that took the brunt of all the criticism. Everything he had done was criticised, from team selection to flying the players’ families over before the final but not allowing them to see each other until after the game. His standing with the regime was totally devastated.
“I felt – and still feel – an enormous, personal sense of loss; that something went out of my life that has never been restored in the decades that followed. It’s more than 40 years ago now, but if someone was to wake me up tomorrow morning and remind me of that match, I’d burst into tears.” – Grosics.
The consequences of the defeat were so severe, it is often pointed to as a catalyst for the Hungarian Revolution two years later. The General Secretary, Matyas Rakosi, had consolidated his political standing by piggybacking on the success of the team, which was now whipped out from under him in the aftermath.
The team returned to playing football two months after the final defeat, with Kocsis now their star man after scoring eleven goals in the tournament. He continued to rack up goals aplenty, adding a further 16 goals in the first 10 games played after the World Cup. Even to this day, Kocsis holds the all-time record for average goals per game against FIFA Class A competition.
In September 1954, Hungary travelled to Moscow to face the Soviet Union, who boasted an unbeaten record at home. The game ended 1-1, to leave the Soviets still in possession of their proud record. In December, Hungary headed to Scotland to take on the Scottish at Hampden Park in a friendly, which saw a crowd of 113,000. An open, attractive game ensued, with Hungary running out 4-2 winners. Scotland had learnt from the thrashing that England had suffered and altered tactics to try and hit Hungary on the counter.
The following year, Scotland went to Budapest for a return match where they were beaten 3-1 in front of 100,000 watching Hungarians. Between July 1954 and February 1956, Hungary played 19 times, winning 16 and drawing 3, but things were coming apart now for the Magical Magyars. It was in this period that Grosics was arrested for espionage. Czibor and Puskas fell out, which led to Czibor being left out of the squad. Zakarias and Lorant were dropped in favour of younger players coming through, but the changes were not of the same quality. Their next game was in Turkey and their unbeaten run came to an end there.
They struggled to bounce back, drawing their next game at home with Yugoslavia, then losing at home to Czechoslovakia, their first ever defeat in the Nepstadion. The 4-2 loss was their first home loss in an international match since 1943. June 1956 saw them facing Belgium in a friendly. They took a 3-1 lead only to collapse in the second half and concede 4 goals to lose 5-4. Once again Sebes took the blame. From being hailed as a master tactician and football genius, he was now suspect in the eyes of the communist government.
Sebes was not to see out June before he was sacked from his role as manager and replaced by Marton Bukovi. Sebes kept his role as President of the Hungarian Olympic Committee until 1960. Even being vice president of UEFA did not protect him and his sacking came with public condemnation for his bourgeois leanings.
The collapse of the national team was mirrored in the country’s government and the Soviets removed Matyas Rakosi from power. Stalinist-era purges were denounced and the victims were rehabilitated. The thaw unleashed a wave of ill-feeling, anger and frustration about the country’s treatment under the communist regime – revolution was coming.
Meanwhile, football continued as normal and the national team drew against Portugal in Lisbon. In September 1956 Hungary were at the Lenin Central Stadium in Moscow to face the Soviet Union in front of a crowd of 102,000. The USSR were expected to succeed Hungary as the best team in the world, with a comfortable home win expected. It was felt that Hungary were over the hill and should be easy meat for the Soviet team. Hungary produced a shock, winning courtesy of a goal from Czibor, which ended the Soviets unbeaten home record and led to a wave of patriotic fervour back home. If the defeat in the World Cup final had started Hungary on the slippery slope to revolution, it was said to be the win over the Soviets which launched the actual revolution.
The majority of the national team were in Spain when the actual Hungarian Revolution erupted in Budapest, playing for Honved in the European Cup, where they were facing Athletic Bilbao in the first round. Honved lost the first leg 3-2, but the trouble back home led to the team electing not to return home. Due to the ongoing revolution, the second leg was moved to a neutral venue, the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, where Honved went out 6-5 on aggregate.
“We hadn’t even had time to unpack our suitcases before we were surrounded by agents. There wasn’t a single player who didn’t get some kind of offer.” – Honved striker Lajos Tichy.
The team were now stuck in limbo, unwilling to go home but the Hungarian football authorities and FIFA were blocking them from being able to play competitive football. They brought their families over from Budapest and then embarked on a fundraising tour of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil, despite FIFA’s best efforts to stymie them. Following the tour, they returned to Europe, where the team broke up. Kocsis signed for Barcelona. Czibor was set to sign for AS Roma, but the Italian FA blocked the move, so he also signed for Barcelona. The pair of them won La Liga with Barca and also made the 1961 European Cup final, which was played in the same Wankdorf Stadium in Berne that had housed their World Cup final defeat. They also lost the European Cup final 3-2, to Benfica. Kocsis lived out the rest of his life in Barcelona, opening a restaurant in the city after he retired from playing. Czibor eventually returned to his home nation.
Puskas was handed a 2-year ban by UEFA. He then trained with Inter Milan, but they elected not to sign him, deciding he was too old and fat, so he also went to Spain, though he ended up with Real Madrid. He was now 31-years-old. Puskas ended up winning 5 consecutive La Liga titles and 3 European Cups and even got called up by Spain, representing them in the 1962 World Cup. After retiring from playing, Puskas went into coaching, leading Panathinaikos to the 1971 European Cup final. He eventually returned to Hungary many years later after the collapse of communism, where he was feted as a national hero. In 1993, he was appointed as head coach of the national team, but could do little with a team that lacked even a modicum of the quality of the great side that he had been part of.
Bozsik had little real choice but to return, as he held a position in parliament. After retiring from playing, he also went into coaching and managed a number of Hungarian sides. Hidegkuti also returned to play and then later managed MTK Budapest. Later he also managed in Italy, Poland and Egypt. Sebes spent the 1960s managing a number of Hungarian clubs, including Honved.
After the Revolution had been brutally crushed, the national team did meet up in Vienna, where there were fears that the players would all be looking to defect. That fear had a solid basis as the Hungarian Olympic squad had been in Melbourne for the Melbourne games at the time of the revolution and 48 of the 60-strong team had refused to go home. Worse was to come from the national Under-21 squad, all of whom refused to return to the country. The players were not exactly being incentivised to return either, with the Hungarian FA warning them that they would face lengthy bans when they returned, meaning many just never went home.
It was the end of arguably the greatest team of all time, certainly the best of their era, and they have never recovered. In 1960 they did manage to win the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Rome and in 1964 they reached the semi-finals of the European Nations Cup as well as winning a gold at the Tokyo Olympics. They even managed to win the next gold in Mexico, but the team was not the all-conquering, dominant force that they had been in the 1950s, even if they did collect more trophies in the 1960s. The Magical Magyars did end the period with a Central European International Cup (1948-53), an Olympic gold medal in 1952 and were FIFA World Cup runners up in 1954, but it was scant reward for a team of such a high standard.
“They were the greatest national side I played against, a wonderful team to watch with tactics we’d never seen before.” – Tom Finney.
“They are the best team I ever faced. They were the best ever.” – Stanley Matthews.
While they may not have actually won the World Cup, their influence on a team that many believe is the greatest World Cup team of all time, the 1970 Brazilian team, is undeniable. They played a 4-2-4, which had been taken to Brazil by Hungarian coach Bela Guttman in the 1950s. It was not just the 1970 team though, it was adopted by the Selecao prior to the 1958 World Cup and the formation and style of play that took them to win so many World Cups has been developed very obviously from Hungary’s great team. That is probably their biggest legacy, the way they influenced first Brazil and later the Dutch ‘Total Football’ ideal.
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To read the previous episode in the Great Teams series click HERE to read Part 6 – Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona – It’s Not Tiki Taka.
Written by Tris Burke March 25 2025 19:44:12
