He pulled the ball back with the underside of his boot to beat the defender and, in one movement, turned and shot the ball into the net as his team outplayed the English 6-3 at Wembley.
Pele? Diego Maradona? Ronaldinho?
This was Ferenc Puskas, who was scoring magical goals long before those greats.
Known as the ``Galloping Major'' because of his portly build and air of authority on the soccer field, the star of Hungary's 1950s team and the Real Madrid side that dominated Europe in the late '50s and early '60s, died in Budapest on Friday at age 79.
Puskas was one of the greatest players of all-time and starred in two of the sport's most famous games.
When Hungary arrived at Wembley in 1953, the England stars took one look at the slightly overweight forward from Honved and were convinced it would be an easy victory for the home side.
But Hungary played a brand of fast, smooth-flowing soccer England had never seen before. Puskas, mesmerizing defenders with his tricks and unleashing the power of his left foot, scored twice on the way to a 6-3 victory that shocked not only the home team but the rest of the soccer world.
It was England's first ever loss at Wembley against a non-British team and, a year later, as if to prove it was no fluke, Hungary beat England 7-1 in Budapest.
``It was like racehorses against carthorses,'' said winger Tom Finney, one of the all-time greats of English soccer. ``They were the greatest national side I played against, a wonderful team to watch with tactics we'd never seen before.''
The 1954 World Cup should have been Puskas' big moment. After the Hungarians beat West Germany 8-3 in a group game, they were big favourites to win the title. But Puskas was injured in that game, frequently the victim of fouls, and, although he faced the Germans again in the final, he wasn't really fit to play. He had a late ``equalizer'' ruled out and the Germans won 3-2.
Refusing to return home after the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Puskas, who had a rebellious, argumentative streak in the Maradona mould, moved to Spain. He took to heavy drinking, however, and, because of homesickness, sought out Hungarian restaurants where he piled on more weight.
Despite being overweight and considered past his best in his early 30s, Puskas became one of the stars of the great Real Madrid dynasty.
His partnership with Alfredo di Stefano, the Argentine forward who scored 428 goals in 510 games for the Spanish club, is probably the best one-two combination of all time.
``Everyone knows he (Puskas) was a great player and an even better person,'' Di Stefano said Friday. ``He was a phenomenon, a very generous man.''
The two were able to read each other's game. Di Stefano, the deep lying centre forward with the vision to create chances and then move forward to feed off his strike partner, dovetailed perfectly with Puskas.
Madrid won five straight Spanish league titles and three European Cup championships. Puskas scored four goals and Di Stefano three in Madrid's 7-3 crushing of Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European final before 127,000 fans at Glasgow's Hampden Park, regarded as one of the best performances in the history of the game.
Puskas missed the other two Cup final wins due to injuries, but collected winners' medals because he played in the earlier rounds.
With his powerful frame, Puskas would shrug off defenders the same way Wayne Rooney does now. Despite his expanding waistline, he was agile and quick over short bursts. Like Maradona, he was all left foot, saying he used his right just to stay upright. Like Pele and Ronaldinho, he could sense scoring opportunities other players couldn't.
``He forms part of football's history,'' said Luis Suarez, a former Barcelona and Inter Milan star who was one of Puskas' biggest rivals. ``He had a great shot and he could accelerate very quickly. People said he was heavyset, but he was very quick in the short sprint.''
Puskas also scored a hat-trick in the 1962 European Cup final against Benfica, only to be on the losing side in a 5-3 Madrid loss. When he retired at age 39 in 1967, Puskas had been the Spanish league's top scorer four times, netting 512 goals in 528 games for Madrid.
His record in international soccer for Hungary was 84 goals in 85 games and, having gained Spanish citizenship, he wound up playing in two World Cups for two different nations, Hungary (1954) and Spain ('62).
Puskas also won the 1952 Olympic soccer gold medal in Helsinki with Hungary. As a coach, he took Greek club Panathinaikos to the 1971 European Cup final, where it lost 2-0 to Ajax Amsterdam.
© The Canadian Press, 2007
