1956

The Golden Team did not fade away; it was broken up by events outside football. In the autumn of 1956 a popular uprising in Hungary was crushed by Soviet forces, and in the same weeks the army club Honvéd was abroad on a European Cup tie. Several of the best players did not go home. This chapter stays on football and gives only the background needed to follow it. Dates and details from 1956 are documented, but the exact movements of individual players are hedged where accounts differ.

The Background in Brief

The uprising began in Budapest on 23 October 1956, with demonstrations against Communist rule and Soviet influence that turned into armed fighting. A reform government under Imre Nagy took power briefly. On 4 November Soviet forces entered Budapest in strength and the uprising was crushed over the following days. Large numbers of people, estimated in the order of two hundred thousand, left the country in the aftermath. The uprising is covered in more depth elsewhere on the site, and this course does not try to retell it.

Honvéd on Tour

In the 1956–57 season Honvéd had qualified for the European Cup, the new continental competition. Their first-round opponents were Athletic Bilbao, and the first leg was played in Spain in November 1956 while Budapest was in turmoil. The second leg could not be played in Hungary and was moved to a neutral ground in Brussels. The result went to Bilbao on aggregate, according to the usual record, but the football was overtaken by the question of what the players would do next.

Honvéd's players had left Hungary before the uprising ended and were abroad when it was crushed. Some returned home. Others stayed away, and a group of them travelled through Western Europe on a series of fundraising and exhibition matches. Different sources describe the details of the tour differently, so this course says only that it kept several of the stars abroad for an extended period.

Who Stayed, Who Went Home

Puskás at Real Madrid

Puskás was suspended by football's governing bodies for roughly eighteen months after refusing to return, and he signed for Real Madrid in 1958 at around thirty-one, overweight and out of match practice, according to the usual account. He then became one of the club's most prolific scorers and played in a side that won the European Cup in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the 1960 final at Hampden Park in Glasgow he scored four goals in a 7–3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt. He also played internationally for Spain, taking Spanish citizenship, and did not return to live in Hungary until after the political changes of the late 1980s. Exact dates and totals should be checked before they are quoted.

Kocsis and Czibor at Barcelona

Kocsis and Czibor joined Barcelona, where they played in a successful side of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both were in the Barcelona team beaten 3–2 by Benfica in the 1961 European Cup final, a match in which the Spanish side hit the woodwork repeatedly, according to the common retelling. Kocsis stayed in Spain and died in Barcelona in 1979; Czibor later returned to Hungary. These details are worth confirming in a dedicated source.

What Was Lost

The national team never reassembled in its 1954 form. The world's most admired forward line was split between Madrid, Barcelona and Budapest. The football thinking behind it, however, did not vanish, and it travelled with the players and the coaches who left, which is the subject of Chapter 8.

Exercises

Next chapter: Hungarians Who Shaped World Football, which follows the coaches and players who carried Hungarian ideas across Europe and South America.