On a murky November afternoon in 1953 Ferenc Puskas, who died in Budapest yesterday aged 79, helped to rouse English football from a complacency born of insularity and blinkered thinking. The awakening was rude and embarrassing. In winning 6-3 Puskas's Hungarians not only became the first foreign team to beat England at Wembley; they changed English football thinking forever.
The most memorable moment of that match has been replayed over and over again. For Hungary's third goal Puskas had Billy Wright tackling thin air as he dragged the ball back from the England captain's challenge before turning to beat Gil Merrick with a shot from a left foot which Francisco Gento, a team-mate at Real Madrid, later described as being "like a hand, he could do anything with it". For Geoffrey Green of the Times Wright had been a fireman going to the wrong fire.
Yet for all their conquerors' individual brilliance, the principal lesson for England was that at international level football was becoming a game of movement. As Puskas observed in his autobiography: "The result was determined by the unpreparedness of England's defence for the method of attack adopted by our forwards."
Central to this approach was a deep- lying centre-forward, Nandor Hidegkuti, whose habit of drifting late into scoring positions confused the English defenders. As Puskas pointed out: "We demonstrated the golden rule of football, and that is: the good player keeps playing even without the ball. All the time he is placing himself so that when the ball comes he is able to make good use of it." This is elementary stuff now but 53 years ago, to English eyes, it was football from another planet.
Hungary's victory and their even more emphatic 7-1 win against England in Budapest the following summer bred a new generation of English coaches who had been mesmerised by Puskas and his colleagues. Among them was Ron Greenwood, then an attacking centre-half at Chelsea but already set on a career in coaching. Greenwood, like England's defence, was bowled over by Puskas, whom he described as "a roly-poly little fellow who looked as if he did most of his training in restaurants".
Certainly Puskas was portly but as Greenwood noted: "He was a natural, a grand master of the game. He was entirely left-footed but no matter how the ball came the old left foot went up and his control was instant and precise. It was as if he had glue on the toe of his boot. He seemed to glide rather than run and, a sure sign of a strong personality, he dictated the shape and pace of the game."
In 1981 Greenwood, now managing England, took the team to Budapest for a World Cup qualifier. England won 3-1 but the home crowd had still had its money's worth in seeing Puskas score a hat-trick for a veterans team before the main event.
Puskas had two football careers divided by the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Early reports of the conflict said that Puskas, a Hungarian army major, had died fighting the Soviet invaders. In fact Honved, the team which made up the bulk of the national side, were abroad on tour and Puskas was one of several players who decided to stay in the west. He was rejected by a number of Italian clubs, who considered him over the hill at 29, and eventually signed for Real Madrid.
Puskas played on for eight more years, scoring 512 times for Real in 528 matches and appearing for Spain in the 1962 World Cup. The best-remembered performance of his latter playing days came in the 1960 European Cup final at Hampden Park when a Glaswegian crowd of 135,000 bathed in the brilliance of Real Madrid's 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt. Puskas scored four times, Alfredo Di Stefano three. Two years later he completed a hat-trick for Real in the final in Amsterdam but finished on the losing side, Benfica winning 5-3.
The biggest paradox of Puskas's career is that, while his Hungary team ruled the football world in terms of quality, they failed to add the 1954 World Cup to the Olympic title they had won two years earlier. They began the finals in Switzerland by scoring nine times against Korea and eight against West Germany. But Puskas injured an ankle and did not play again until the teams met again in the final, when he still was not fully fit.
Germany won 3-2 after Hungary had taken an early 2-0 lead, Puskas having a last-minute equaliser disallowed for offside by the English referee, Bill Ling. "Inwardly I wept at the result but my congratulations for Fritz Walter, West Germany's captain, were sincere," Puskas recalled. "The loser must have no spite." Not a bad epitaph for the Galloping Major.
Lacey's all-time top five
Pele Brazil
Generally acknowledged as the greatest footballer ever, he combined individual brilliance with a keen appreciation of team play - as in the pass which set up Carlos Alberto's goal in the 1970 World Cup final.
Diego Maradona Argentina
Hand of God maybe but for defenders the feet belonged to Mephistopheles - as when he eluded the entire England team to score Argentina's second goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals.
Johann Cruyff Holland
The epitome of the total football the Dutch introduced in the early 1970s, Cruyff was the orchestrator supreme. Remains Europe's nearest to a Pele.
Ferenc Puskas Hungary
Arguably the greatest player of the post-war era and a major influence on English football through the routs of 1953 and 1954. Reinvented his career with Real Madrid.
George Best Northern Ireland
Had as big an impact on the English game in the 1960s as the Hungarian in the 1950s. A pity his career did not achieve equal longevity.