When Barcelona take on Ferencvaros at Camp Nou on Tuesday, you might think it's just a Champions League team.
Barcelona have a historic connection to Ferencvaros, as the Budapest club has sent Barca a super goalscorer long before Lionel Messi and John Cruyff, who is probably Barcelona's most outstanding player of all time: Laszlo Kubala.
Real Madrid president Bernabeu was very keen to sign Kubala, but in the end it was Barca who got him, although we don't know how Barca handled the matter. Whatever happened, Kubala was a barcelona player who quickly became synonymous with the club.
When Kubala arrived, Barca was far more than a weak brigade. But they are definitely not today's super clubs.
They won their inaugural La Liga title in 1928-29, but it took them 16 years to win La Liga again. When Kubala came, Samitir was still coaching. Due to FIFA's suspension, he still couldn't play, only friendly matches, but fans came from miles away to watch him play.
A refugee from outside the Iron Curtain, the blonde-haired, pectoral-muscled Kubala was popular in Barcelona, and he fell in love with the city — especially its nightlife. On a typical morning, Kubala drank a cup of coffee with aspirin added to it, blinking his eyes in the Catalan sun. He took a shower, took a nap, woke himself up from a night of fatigue, and then got up with a cute smile to train and play soccer that no one else had ever seen before.
He pioneered new methods of free kicks and penalties, and his combination of physical strength and electrocution technique made it almost impossible for him to be cut off. Pulling back, catching the ball, changing speed, accurate passes and shots, he looks like a player sent from the future.
"You can't knock him down with a single shell." Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stéfano said. In fact, it was Kubala's superhuman performance that convinced Real Madrid that they needed a star of their own. In 1953, he controversially defeated Barca to sign Di Stefano.
By the time Kubala was excluded from the competition in the mid-1950–51 season, the league title was out of reach, but he scored six goals in seven games to help Barca win the Grand Marshal Cup (the predecessor of the Copa del Rey), which was only a prelude to the upcoming glory.
In his first full season, he was the star of Barcelona's historic "year of five crowns"; in a match against Athletic Gijón, he scored seven goals in one game – a La Liga record that still holds today. Fans have packed the stands of Barca's old stadium and they clearly need a bigger new pitch. And so camp Nou was born.
"Kubala is the cornerstone of Catalan football's support for growth." Head coach Samitier said: "With him and later Di Stefano (in Madrid), football became an opera. ”
After the five crowns, disaster struck. Kubala was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was sent to a remote mountain village to recover, but with their star players missing, Barca struggled in the standings and wondered if he would ever play again.
To fill the void left by his absence, they found Di Stefano, but Kubala miraculously recovered. He lost weight and didn't play for months, but his return has inspired Barcelona. They won eight games in a row, rising from fifth to first and winning the title for the second time in history.
Di Stefano came to Madrid the following summer, which put up resistance to Barca's strength. Capitals grew to prominence under Franco's favour, winning four titles over the next five years.
Meanwhile, in Hungary, Ferencvaros and the Hungarian national team have been busy. When Ferencvaros won the Hungarian championship in 1949, two young talented strikers also played key roles.
Sandor Kochis and Zoltán Ziber could have achieved more at Ferencvaros, but Hungarian football at the time was undergoing a revolution. The club was nationalized and national team coach Gustav Sebes took advantage of that.
A small club called The Cliffesti AC, which later became a military club, was renamed Budapesti Honved. Sebes's best players were drafted into the army, with Conchs and Zippel among them.
But after the dramatic loss of the World Cup in 1954, Hungarian football was like a sinking ship, with stars like Kochis and Ziber being advised to go ashore, while Kubala was a testament to the glittering lifestyle that awaited them elsewhere.
With the outbreak of war in Hungary in 1956, Ziber went to Rome and Kochis went to Zurich, but in 1958, Kubala persuaded the duo to go to Barcelona, while star player Puskas and Di Stefano met in Madrid.
By then, Kubala himself had fallen out of favor. His eccentric behavior off the pitch is loved by most people. But the new manager Herrera doesn't think so, and Herrera believes that Kubala has too much power at the club and does not appreciate his hedonistic lifestyle.
Kubala fell out of favor, but Kochis and Ziber were still there. Zippel is an extremely fast winger, and Kochis is a devastating finisher and one of the most famous header masters in the history of the game, and their combination has a devastating effect.
Herrera's side won the league in 1958-59, beating Real Madrid 4-0 at home and knocking them out of the Grand Marshal Cup and eventually winning the title. At the time, Real Madrid dominated the early days of the European Champions League, but Barca were the leaders at home.
Puskas explained: "When we won the European Cup in 1959 and 1960, Barcelona won twice in the league. They have a great team and seem to be able to 'do' us whenever they want. The Hungarian lads show no mercy on this... Even called me to embarrass me even more. ”
Kubala eventually survived herrera and returned to the team to play with Kochis and Ziber. In 1961, they reached the final of the European Champions Cup for the first time and came there with a sense of fatalism, becoming the first team to knock Real Madrid out of the Champions League.
The final took place at bern's Wankdorf Stadium – where Kochis and Zippel experienced a World Cup nightmare seven years ago. The two changed their clothes in the hallway and refused to return to the same dressing room to play benfica, led by another Hungarian, Bela Gutmann.
Kochis scored with a header from the start. Zippel scored a brilliant goal in the Champions League final with a left-foot volley. Again, this is not enough. Barca hit the frame four times and Benfica won 3-2.
For Kochis and Ziber, it was a familiar failure, and with it came a familiar sense of decay. Like Hungary, Barca missed out on opportunities and have not reached the Champions League final in 25 years. Kubala left shortly after the defeat.
In 357 games, Kubala scored 281 goals and won 4 league titles, redefining everything on the football pitch. His popularity was so high that in a commemorative match for him, his friendly rivals Di Stefano and Puskas put on red and blue shirts and Camp Nou paid tribute to their first true idol.
Barcelona didn't end their domestic success with a European title, meaning their 50s side is no longer as revered as it once was, but in Catalonia, Kubala has never been forgotten.
His statue stands outside camp Nou as a memorial to the days gone by; he changed not only the course of football but perhaps the whole of Spanish football.