All eyes were on the Hungary captain going into the 1954 Final. Was he completely over his injury? Not wanting to miss the match, the pinnacle of his career to date, Puskas played despite suggestions that he was not fully fit. The Magical Magyars enjoyed a perfect start, Puskas seemingly silencing all the doubters by opening the scoring in just the sixth minute.
Two minutes later it was 2-0 but in the pouring rain in Berne, West Germany responded. By the break it was 2-2, and with three minutes remaining Helmut Rahn struck the Germans' third goal. There was still time for Puskas to find the net but his effort was disallowed for offside. After 31 matches undefeated, Hungary were beaten.
Following the Final, that great Hungary team gradually disintegrated and Puskas' own life was soon to change dramatically. In 1956, he travelled with Honved to Spain for a UEFA European Cup fixture against Athletic Bilbao that coincided with a period of national uprising in Hungary. Puskas and a number of his team-mates never returned home, taking sanctuary in the West. After a 15-month suspension from football, the now 31-year-old's friend Emil Oestreicher, Honved's financial secretary during his latter years at the club who had scored a job as Real Madrid's technical director, persuaded his new employers to recruit Puskas.
There he embarked on the next hugely successful chapter of his career. Forging one of the game's most famous strike partnerships alongside the great Alfredo Di Stefano, Puskas helped Real Madrid to five league crowns, establishing them as one of the most dominant forces in Europe. His finest hour came in the 1960 UEFA European Cup final in front of 130,000 fans at Glasgow's Hampden Park, where los Merenguesbeat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3. Di Stefano scored a hat-trick but the evening belonged to Puskas, who struck four times in a legendary victory. He ended that season with an incredible 35 goals in 39 games.
In 1962, Puskas was called up by the Spanish national team for the FIFA World Cup in Chile. It proved an unhappy campaign, Spain going home after the group stage with Puskas unable to find the net. Puskas remained with Madrid until 1967, before retiring aged 40 having recorded 324 goals in 372 games for the Spanish giants. He turned to coaching and led Panathinaikos to the 1971 European Cup final as coach, but his greatest personal triumph came in 1992, when he returned to his homeland, Hungary, to live at the age of 65.
