Ferenc Puskas was the greatest player in a great team, the tubby genius who made Hungary tick. It might have been Nandor Hidegkuty the deep-lying centre-forward, who unpicked England's defences that Wembley afternoon 50 years ago, but the goal that everybody went home talking about was the third, when Puskas rolled the ball back with his studs to evade the challenge of Billy Wright, then lashed the ball into the top corner.

Wonderful vision

"I believe that if a good player has the ball, he should have the vision to spot at least three options," said the Hungary right-back Jen?z᮳zky. "Puskas always saw at least five." It was not just his playing ability that marked Puskas out, though: his relationship with the coach Gusztav Sebes was critical to the development of the Golden Squad.

Footballing child

Puskas never knew a world without football. He was born in April 1927 in Kispest, a village on the edge of Budapest that would become central to the development of the Golden Squad. As a child, Puskas lived in a flat right next to Kispest FC's stadium.

Left foot

His father played for and later managed the club, and family legend has it that almost as soon as he had learned to walk, Puskas began kicking a ball - although, only, of course, with his left foot; Puskas vies with Diego Maradona for the title of the world's greatest one-footed player.

Underage player

Lying about his age, along with Jozsef Bozsik who would himself be a key part of the Golden Squad, Puskas signed for Kispest as a junior in 1936, making his first team debut in 1943. Although criticised for holding on to the ball too long, and his habit of shouting at older players, he soon became a regular.

International respect

Kispest struggled in the league - which went on despite the German occupation and subsequent Russian counterattack - but Puskas was called up to the national squad for the first two post-war internationals in August 1945. Although he was left out of the first game, he scored in the second - a 5-2 win over Austria.
 

Army team

Puskas took over the captaincy of Kispest in 1946, and results began to improve. Two years later, Gusztav Sebes was appointed to a three-man coaching committee in charge of the national side. He soon took charge in his own right, a few months before Hungarian clubs were forcibly nationalised by the pro-Soviet government and Kispest became Kispest Honved FC, the team of the army.

Conscripted players

Sebes had seen how the great Italy and Austria sides of the 1930s were largely based on one, or at most two clubs, and realised what an opportunity nationalisation presented. Kispest was to house the core of his squad - and players who did not want to join could be conscripted.
 

'Tremendous understanding'

Working with his players day-in, day-out at Honved Sebes was able to finely tune his tactical experiments. He would even arrange friendlies against other Hungarian clubs who would be asked to take on the tactical shape and characteristics of Hungary's next opponents. "We came to have a tremendous understanding of everything required to play the game," Puskas said.

Happy accident

Sebes might have been pulling the strings, but Puskas was his representative on the field - the man he trusted to make tactical changes during a game. Destiny is easy to impose retrospectively, but the Golden Squad would probably never have existed had Sebes and Puskas not been flung together in a world of nationalised clubs
uefa.com