Soccer
Football's first disruptors came from Budapest
As Budapest takes centre stage – with RB Leipzig's Champions League clash against Liverpool one of two games moved to the Puskas Aréna – we look back at a Hungary team that changed the game forever.
Budapest may feel like a footballing outpost today, but back in the 1950s it was the birthplace of a revolution in the way the game was played.
Hungary's national team were football’s first disruptors, throwing the established tactics and methods out of the dressing room window.
Led on the field by Ferenc Puskás, the 'Mighty Magyars' originated a style that transformed football from a direct, physical battle into the more complex sport we recognise today – dynamic, fluid and tactically innovative.
The Puskás Aréna hosting RB Leipzig and Liverpool is built on the site of the old Nepstadion, the People's Stadium. It was there in May 1954 that 92,000 people crammed in to see an England side utterly destroyed 7–1 by Hungary, with Puskás and Sándor Kocsis each scoring twice.
The Puskás Aréna was built on the site of the old Nepstadion
© Getty Images
It wasn't a fluke result either. That match was the 'return fixture' to what was to become known as the 'Match of the Century' the previous year, when Hungary had destroyed the English 6–3, becoming the first continental team ever to win at Wembley.
And it wasn't just the scorelines that led the world to sit up and take notice. It was the way Hungary played: a breathtaking – and effective – combination of radical attacking tactics, brilliant individual skill, fearless self-belief, speed and team-work.
If that sounds familiar, it's because the innovations made by coach Gusztáv Sebes and his players were to echo around football for decades to come.
They had an icon of the game as their leader. At 1.72m tall and with a stocky build, Puskás didn’t look like a typical athlete, but he had the ability to turn a game in a moment.
The all-conquering Hungary side
© Getty Images
He captained Hungary to Olympic gold in 1952 and even made the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland, where they somehow lost to West Germany despite having thrashed them 8–3 in the group stage. The defeat was so unexpected, that the result was dubbed 'the Miracle of Bern'.
However, despite Hungary never getting their hands on the trophy, the world certainly took notice.
There was a direct transfer of knowledge from Hungarian coaches, with Béla Guttman taking the 4–2–4 formation to South America, introducing at São Paulo a system of play that was used in Brazil's 1958 World Cup triumph.
There was a broader influence, too.
We constantly changed positions, so where we lined up at kick-off was irrelevant
There would have been no 'Total Football' from the Dutch of the 1970s without the positional flexibility the Hungarians introduced and the Tiki-Taka of Pep Guardiola's Barcelona owes its origins to the devastatingly effective short-passing, possession football from the Magyars.
The 'false nine' is everywhere these days, but the original deep-lying centre-forward was Nándor Hidegkuti, who in Sebes's system wore the number nine shirt, but confused opponents by dropping deep and leaving spaces for wingers and inside-forwards to move into.
"We constantly changed positions, so where we lined up at kick-off was irrelevant. We concentrated on creating the maximum confusion in our opponent's defence," said Hidegkuti.
Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold is the epitome of a modern full-back
© Greg Coleman/Red Bull Content Pool
Think attacking full-backs emerged with Trent-Alexander Arnold, Marcelo, or Roberto Carlos? The English were stunned to see Hungarian right-back Jenő Buzánszky bursting down the flank into space, in the days when a number-two rarely crossed the halfway line.
Wide players were told to "stick to their wing" in that era, until Hungary also tore up that approach. Zoltán Czibor and László Budai swapped wings and even doubled-up, leaving the English and other opponents under-manned and overwhelmed.
Football, like everything else in life, is propelled forward by new discoveries
"Football, like everything else in life, is propelled forward by new discoveries. As in chemistry, physics, or any field of science, so in football," said Buzánszky.
But the 'Golden team' weren't just pieces in a clever game of chess. They combined tactical genius with impressive energy and relentless running – a style described by England's then central defender Harry Johnston as the "Hungarian hurricane".
While Real Madrid were to enjoy the latter years of Puskás’s talents and Barcelona gained Czibor and Sandor Kocsis, the golden era faded after the 1956 revolution and Hungarian football was never quite the same again.
RB Leipzig's Dominik Szoboszlai is one of Hungary's rising stars
© GEPA pictures/Red Bull Content Pool
Today, football at its best, the football we all love, amounts to an evolution of the Hungarian game, with the same mix of fearlessness, energy and tactical innovation at its core.
It's fitting, then, that Budapest will take centre-stage as the Champions League returns.
Over half a century after Puskás last pulled on a Magyars shirt, there are some signs of a long overdue revival to Hungary's footballing fortunes.
Hungary have qualified for Euro 2020 and the star of the current side, RB Leipzig's Dominik Szoboszlai, arguably the best player the country has produced in three decades, will get a chance then to showcase his talent on the field where football changed forever.
