Magical Magyar Puskas mesmerised defences

BUDAPEST, Nov 17 (Reuters) Ferenc Puskas, the most mesmerising of the Magical Magyars, was the captain, inspiration and match-winner of a 1950s Hungarian national team that some still argue was the best the world has ever seen.

His lethal left foot, the scourge of defences in the 20 years immediately after the Second World War, earned him a goalscoring record in international soccer that stood for 50 years.

Puskas had an extraordinary tale to tell. He was the Budapest street urchin who rose to the pinnacle of world soccer against the austere backdrop of an eastern European communist state system before fleeing to the west and starting a second career with the world's most glamorous club, Real Madrid.

His football fantasy life, interwoven with drinking sprees, rebellions and off-field antics which would make present-day coaches cringe, evokes nostalgia for a golden era when the name of the game was goals galore and caution was left blowing in the wind.

Puskas has a unique place in soccer folklore as the only man to play in what were perhaps the two most famous games in history -- Hungary's stunning 6-3 victory over England at Wembley in 1953 and Real Madrid's 7-3 demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup final.

The ''galloping major'', as he was known in Britain, scored six of the 19 goals in those two epics and brought the house down in both.

Puskas was born Ferenc Purczeld in April 1927. The family name change -- Puskas means ''rifleman'' -- came later.

He learned his skills in the Budapest backstreets, impish, instinctive but driven to succeed. Under the harsh communist regime, football offered an escape from the rigours of state control and financial hardship.

His Hungarian nickname, even into his 70s was always ''Pukas Ocsi'', ''Our little brother Puskas''.

OLYMPIC GOLD He made his national debut in 1945. Seven years later, he scored one of the goals that won Hungary Olympic soccer gold at the Helsinki Games.

Short and stocky and with the ever-present tendency of his stomach to flow above and beyond the confines of his shorts, Puskas hardly cut the figure of a world class player.

Indeed, prior to the kick off of the 1953 Wembley game, one of the England players mocked him as ''that little fat chap''.

But, just as Diego Maradona was to do some two decades or so later, he used his low centre of gravity to devastating effect, scoring an amazing 83 goals in 84 games for Hungary.

The vast majority were with his ferocious left foot. The right, it was always suggested, did little more than guarantee he did not have to hop around the pitch.

The ever impish Puskas almost revelled in this, saying: ''If you kick with both feet, you fall on your arse''.

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