6 best Hungarian footballers of all time

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Football is one of the most popular sports in Hungary. Lots of Hungarians go to local football games and even place bets on the winning team on 22Bet. What’s more, some look up to popular footballers and become professionals themselves. Here are 6 best Hungarian football players of all time. We know Puskás, but Hungarians also have other great players:

Zoltán Czibor 

One of the most famous Hungarian forwards, who played for the national team until the mid fifties of the last century. The footballer played 43 matches where he scored 17 goals. He played in the “gold team” of Hungary national team, which spent 32 matches without defeat, beating teams of Brazil and Germany. 

In 1952 he won the Olympics, scoring a goal in the final match against Yugoslavia. A year later, as part of his country’s team the athlete won the Central European Cup, and next year he reached the finals of the World Cup and even scored a goal in the decisive match against West Germany, but Hungary then still conceded. After the failed Hungarian uprising in 1956, he was abroad, playing for various European teams, including Barcelona and Roma. The athlete returned to the country only in the nineties, where he worked as president of Komarom, the club where he once took his first steps in football. 

Károly Zsák

A goalkeeper, fanatically devoted to football, who died practically on the field at 49. During the match, the referee awarded a free kick to the goal that Zsák was defending. Yet, the goalkeeper thought that this decision was unfair and became so nervous that a vessel burst in his heart. It was no longer possible to save the goalkeeper. 

Curiously, Károly Zsák never played for professional teams, remaining an amateur in the sport, but that did not stop him from standing in goal for 13 years in the national team. The first time he stood in the goal of the national team at the age of seventeen. It happened in 1912, and the next year he was named best player of the year in the country. And he left the national team not by decision of the coaches or his own free will, but at the insistence of doctors. Yet, this has not saved him from a tragic death. 

Flórián Albert

He is the only Hungarian footballer to win the Ballon d’Or award. He played in attack for the Hungarian club Ferencváros and remained loyal to that club throughout his football career, becoming the team leader in the sixties.

He went to Ferencvaros school at 11. He dreamed of becoming a striker, but at first he was placed at the position of central defender. Then he was transferred to the midfield, and only a few years later he managed to convince the coaches that his place was only at the edge of the attack. 

For Ferencvaros, he played 351 games, scoring 256 goals in the opponents, 33 goals were scored in the European cups. 

Nándor Hidegkuti 

Foreign defenders called him “the wrong attacker,” because it was incredibly difficult to guard him. The player was constantly moving around the field and often went even to his own goal. But then he literally exploded and attacked uncontrollably. 

He was a member of the legendary Hungarian “gold team”. He won World Championship silver medals in 1954 and the Olympics in 1952. He is an author of a hat-trick in a match against England on its field, which the Hungarians sensationally won with a score of 6-3. Interestingly, in the difficult post-war years he played in the factory teams just for the food. And after finishing his career as a player, he became a successful coach, winning the Cup Winners’ Cup with Fiorentina. 

György Sárosi

A striker who graphically refuted the notion of footballers as people whose horizons are limited to the field – Sárosi was also a doctor of philology. And as a coach, he won the Italian championship with Juventus. In general, whatever he did, everything came out with a bold exclamation point.

He spent almost his entire football career at Ferencvaros. The sportsman won five national championships with the club and won the Hungarian Cup. After the establishment of communist rule in the country he went to Italy, where he began coaching. He even coached the Iranian national team but without much success. He died in Genoa, never returning to his homeland. 

Gyula Grosics

According to FIFA, he was among the best goalkeepers of the twentieth century. Champion of the 1952 Olympic Games as part of the “gold team”, silver medalist of the 1954 World Cup. Interestingly, after this world football forum Grosics was accused of espionage and even imprisoned, where he spent several months, and then was forcibly sent to the provincial Hungarian club Tatabanya. 

He took part in two more world championships, but the Hungarian team did not shine there any more. In his old age, he lived practically in poverty until the management of Ferencvaros found out about it. The 82-year-old Grosics was accepted into the team for life and was assigned No. 1. Since then, no one plays for the club under that number – it’s fixed forever for the legendary goalkeeper.