VARIOUS: SOCCER/FOOTBALL - Hungary and the soccer world mourns soccer great Ferenc Puskas

Record ID: 334869

  • Title: VARIOUS: SOCCER/FOOTBALL - Hungary and the soccer world mourns soccer great Ferenc Puskas
  • Date: 19th November 2006
  • Summary: ILUT VILLAGE, NEAR NAZARETH, ISRAEL (NOVEMBER 17, 2006) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHEL PLATINI SPEAKING: "Puskas was an idol of our youth and it's a legend who died this morning. For me it's a big pity because I knew him very well and he is a part of the history of the football who has gone away. It's a pity for Hungarian football and for football. He was a very great man."
  • Embargoed: 4th December 2006 12:00
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  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA8VWDETBKVT8WAM97K505A4L14
  • Story Text: The Hungarian Football League mourned its great football star Ferenc Puskas with a quiet flower laying and candle lighting memorial outside the League building in Budapest on Friday (November 17).
    Puskas, the best player of his generation and a key member of the nation's "Golden Team" of the 1950s, died in hospital on Friday morning, aged 79, after a long illness.
    Members of the league, players and fans laid flowers as a screen in the background showed archive footage of Puskas.
    Puskas, whose international scoring record of 83 goals in 84 games stood until 2003, won Olympic gold with Hungary in 1954, league titles with his Hungarian club Honved and with Real Madrid, with whom he also won three European Cups.
    Puskas was the inspiration behind the "Magical Magyars", the Hungarian national side that sensationally beat England 6-3 in 1953, the first foreign side to win at Wembley.
    As the last millennium drew to a close, Puskas was voted the 20th century's fourth best player by the International Federation for Football History and Statistics.
    Former international "Golden" team mate Jeno Buzanszky said he was devastated at the news.
    "Yesterday we could say that three of us are still alive from the Golden Team, today we are only two. He was one of the most well known Hungarians not only in football but also for the whole Hungarian nation. I don't remember any other Hungarian who was so well known as Puskas Ocsi. And we lost him, he left us, and now there is one more star in the sky and we can look up searching which one is him," Buzanszky said.
    Born in April 1927, Puskas began his career in the domestic league aged 15 and won his first international cap three years later, scoring on his debut against neighbours Austria.
    He was a talismanic member of Hungary's 1950s team that lost just one match -- the 1954 World Cup final -- in six years. That side was devastated by Hungary's anti-communist uprising in 1956, after which Puskas went into exile.
    In 1958, he resurrected his career at Real Madrid where he formed a lethal strike partnership with Argentine-born Alfredo Di Stefano, winning six domestic titles and conquering Europe.
    Puskas scored four and Di Stefano three in Real's mesmerising 7-3 European Cup win over Eintracht Frankfurt in Glasgow in 1960 -- a match that has passed into soccer folklore.
    Speaking in Madrid, Di Stefano led former teammates in paying tribute.
    "He was always very generous. It seems like he had a hole in his hand," he said.
    Puskas retired in 1967, going on to coach clubs in several countries, leading Greek side Panathinaikos to the European Cup final in 1971.
    Puskas, who was admitted to hospital in late 2000 with arteriosclerosis and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, leaves a wife Erzsebet.
    His funeral will be held on Dec. 9, the international committee organising the ceremony said.
    Former French international Michel Platini was among those who paid tribute to the great Hungarian.
    "Puskas was an idol of our youth and it's a legend who died this morning. For me it's a big pity because I knew him very well and he is a part of the history of the football who has gone away. It's a pity for Hungarian football and for football. He was a very great man," Platini said during a visit to Israel on Friday.
    Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said he had memories of a "special player".
    "It's sad. I met him a few times at games over the years and when a great player like that passes the one thing you can do is reflect on what a great player he was and the great games he played in," said Ferguson.
    Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said his death was a big loss for football.
    "I didn't know him personally but I had some directors at Real Madrid when I was in charge of the Under-19 team and they were always talking about Ferenc Puskas, how he was. He explained to me that he could shoot to the top corner maybe five times if he wanted, or to the bottom corner and was amazing, amazing. It's a big loss for football."
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