Four goals for Hungarian hero – and a lesson for English football
KEVIN de Bruyne followed in the footsteps of one of the football greats when he rattled in four goals against Wolves in the Premier League clash at Molineux in May.
It was in March, 1960, that Hungarian legend Sandor Kocsis scored a quartet when Spanish aces Barcelona became the first foreign side to win under the Molineux floodlights, winning the second leg of the European Cup quarterfinal 5-2.
In 1953, Kocsis was a member of the “Magical Magyars” side who rocked English football by winning 6-3 at Wembley.
Kocsis, who had left Hungary after the 1956 uprising and joined Barcelona in 1959, was a late choice for the Molineux game. He took over from veteran Laszlo Kubala, another Hungarian who had fled his homeland in 1949. Also omitted from the first-leg side was another member of the famous 1953 Hungary side – winger Zoltan Czibor.
Wolves faced an almost impossible second-leg task back in 1960, having been outplayed 4-0 in Spain. Before the goals started flowing there was a bizarre moment when Wolves were awarded a direct free kick on the edge of the penalty area.
All eleven Barcelona players lined up under the crossbar and it was no surprise that Eddie Clamp’s shot was scrambled clear.
Paraguayan Eulogio Martinez was the architect of victory, setting up the first three of Kocsis’s goals, starting in the 29th minute. Wearing the number-nine shirt, he was no orthodox centre-forward, often turning up on the right wing to torment the home defence.
Despite being surrounded by three defenders he got in his cross for Kocsis to fire home a low shot past Geoff Sidebottom, deputising for Malcolm Finlayson who had injured his shoulder in the first game at Camp Nou.
On 36 minutes Wolves were level when Peter Broadbent and Norman Deeley created an opening for Jimmy Murray, who prodded the ball home via a deflection off Ferran Olivella.
That sparked a brief revival but on 43 minutes Martinez created a similar goal to the first. George Showell lost out in a tackle on Kocsis and the ball went to Martinez who squared it across goal, where Kocsis had arrived for a tap-in despite a despairing tackle from Bill Slater.
Two low centres by Des Horne from the left just evaded Murray but half-time arrived with Wolves 6-1 down on aggregate. Again they rallied and a Broadbent shot had “goal” written all over it until the acrobatic Antoni Ramallets flung himself low to save.
So on 61 minutes Martinez could again dance his way through to set up Kocsis’s hattrick goal to make it 3-1 on the night. He audaciously flicked the ball over the head of Gerry Harris and though Sidebottom pushed his shot against the bar the ball came back across goal for Kocsis to head home.
Worse was to come when on 74 minutes the Hungarian ace scored his fourth, set up by midfield maestro Luis Suarez and right winger Luis Coll.
Bobby Mason fired home a Clamp centre three minutes later as Wolves kept plugging away despite their task being hopeless. Almost inevitably, Barcelona raced away to make it 5-2 seven minutes from time through Ramon Villaverde.a lofted through ball found the Uruguayan left-winger and he beat two men before blasting the fifth goal past Sidebottom.
Seven goals had been scored in the space of 53 minutes.
Teams at Molineux on Wednesday, March 2, 1960:
Wolves: Sidebottom; Showell, Harris; Clamp, Slater, Flowers; Deeley, Broadbent, Murray, Mason, Horne.
Barcelona: Ramallets; Olivella, Rodriguez, Gracia, Segarra, Gensana, Coll, Kocsis, Martinez, Suarez, Villaverde.
Attendance: 55,535
Wolves manager Stan Cullis said afterwards: “If we were to lose our record, it could not have been to a finer side. I thought that they played wonderful football.”
Writing in the Daily Herald, Peter Lorenzo declared: “Sandor Kocsis, the handsome Hungarian who helped to shatter England’s unbeaten soccer pride at Wembley six years ago, returned in even more destructive, villainous mood. The magnificent Magyar marksman contemptuously cracked in the first four Barcelona goals in this ruthless, crushing burial of Wolves’ European Cup dreams.”
In the Express & Star, Phil Morgan said a capacity crowd “watched first with apprehension, then with awe, and finally with undisguised admiration as the Spanish champions laid bare the shortcomings of British first-class soccer and at the same time showed what the game can really be made to look like.”
Amazingly, there was an even better team in Spain – Real Madrid. In the semi-final they beat Barcelona 3-1 at home and away to set up one of football’s most famous games as they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in a masterclass at Hampden Park. And another Hungarian exile, Ferenc Puskas, was the four-goal hero on that occasion.
Kocsis and Puskas had been teammates in the Hungarian side Honved when they were beaten dramatically 3-2 at Molineux in 1954 after leading 2-0 at half-time. That game with Wolves’ other famous floodlit friendlies was the catalyst for the creation of the European Cup, forerunner of the Champions League.
One of the game’s greats, Kocsis died tragically in July, 1979, after falling from the fourth floor of a Barcelona hospital. He had been there for a week with stomach trouble. Aged 50, he had been running a restaurant in Barcelona since his retirement from football.