ENGLAND 3- 6 HUNGARY

1953 FRIENDLY

It was dubbed ‘ The Match of the Century’. England were insular, pompous even, believing their gift of football to other countries held them superior. Hungary, by contrast, were innovative, balletic, unbeaten in three years and intent on changing the face of football.

“Look at that little fat chap,” one unidentified England player said in the tunnel, pointing at Hungarian captain Ferenc Puskas. “We’ll murder this lot.”

The ensuing 6- 3 mauling – the Three Lions’ first on home soil against foreign opposition – was an earthquake for the English game. Nandor Hidegkuti’s hat- trick was momentous in its sublime movement, influencing false nines for generations. The portly Puskas, meanwhile, helped himself to two, featuring a dragback so good that Geoffrey Green in The Times described Billy Wright’s attempted sliding tackle as “like a fireman racing to the wrong fire”.

England were baffled, but Alf Ramsey, their ageing right- back that day, came away convinced that a major rethink was needed if the game’s inventors were ever to win the World Cup...