Please don’t look at these blog posts and think “I don’t like football” and then go on your merry way. All of these blog posts are about much more than football. In particular they concern the eternal battle between sporting genius and cream cakes.
After the Wembley game in 1953, Ferenc Puskás went on to play in a number of other matches in Great Britain. After England’s defeat, Wolverhampton Wanderers tried to re-establish the reputation and the enduring quality of English football by playing prestigious friendlies against top European club sides. And if they beat enough of them, they would be able to make the claim that they were the Champions of Europe. Puskás played for Honved of Budapest in one such game:
Here’s the line up of the two teams. Six of the players had played in 1953:
Never underestimate the English love of a cartoon on the back cover of a football programme:
From Hungarian football Puskás joined Real Madrid. He played in a second legendary game, the European Cup Final of 1960 which finished Real Madrid 7 Eintracht Frankfurt 3. Frankfurt had already beaten Glasgow Rangers by an aggregate of 12-4 in the semi finals. In the final, Puskás scored four goals:
Here’s the team line-ups:
Being a very sad person indeed, I bought a reproduction ticket to the game. Here’s the front:
And the back
That game is widely accepted in football as the greatest ever played. It was between two teams, one of which was very, very good and one of which was walking into legend. And certainly, very few of the crowd of 127,621 were disappointed by the game.
John Knifton 
Those sort of games come very rarely.
Less than once a lifetime really. This game had players who were legends in football history, very high standards of skill, ten goals and a record crowd for any soccer game in the world, and certainly in Europe. I suppose that there must be games like that in baseball and American football. Sadly I don’t know enough about them to say. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know who Joltin’ Joe was if Elton John hadn’t mentioned him.
If the final was played in Glasgow where were the qualifying games played.
All of the qualifying games were played at the grounds of the participating clubs on a two legged basis, home and away. Right at the beginning of the competition, a draw is made and, to take one example, Nice of France were drawn to play Shamrock Rovers of Ireland, The first game was in France and Nice won 3-2. In the return in Ireland it was 1-1, so overall, Nice won 4-3 and went forward to round two. Eventually, to take another example, Nice were drawn to play Real Madrid. They beat them in France 3-2. In Spain they lost 0-4 so overall it was 6-3 to Real Madrid. All of the scores can be read about here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959%E2%80%9360_European_Cup
Yes but neither of the two finalists were from Scotland. Or was that because there was a requirement for a neutral ground?
REPLY: No, every year, the European Football Union (UEFA) agree on where the final will be held the following May. This decision making occurs in August or before. The only criteria are the size and state of the stadium which has to be tip-top, modern and so on. The time delay also allows for any minor improvements that need to be done to be carried out.
This process means that the world’s No 1 soccer match is spread around many countries. If the venue were related in any way to the finalists the final would be played year in, year out, in either Spain, Germany, Italy or England. Only one team from a country outside these four has been in the final since 1996.
Just occasionally, UEFA decide in August to play at Real Madrid’s stadium and by the time the final is played the following May, Real Madrid are one of the finalists. That is considered their good fortune and the venue is never changed.
Thank you. It makes sense.
You don’t see score lines like that very often, especially these days!
No you don’t but it’s always worth looking at the Highland League on teletext. They had a 16-0 there a couple of weeks back and I can’t remember where it was but somebody won 7-4 not too long ago.
16-0 – Now that’s impressive although I’d hate to be on the receiving end!