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60 years ago, on May 18, at a time when going to football did not mean keeping social distance, 127,000 people filled Glasgow’s Hampden Park to watch a dream final of the European Cup, with Real Madrid defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3.
It was 1960 and it was the fifth European Cup (tournament called the Champions League today) won by the white team and many specialists consider it to be one of the best in all history (for example, the Spanish newspaper believes this) ABC) of a tournament that today is the most important club competition on the planet.
The game was also followed by 70 million people on television, a record then.
But that meeting also marked the end of an era, Madrid’s first glorious one, which won the first five editions of the continental competition and dominated European football, represented by its two stars, the Argentinean Alfredo Di Stéfano (34 years old) and the Hungarian Ferenc Puskas (33).
That Real Madrid had other stars, such as winger Francisco Gento, who in 1966 would win the 6th European Cup with the white team, a milestone that has not been equaled, Uruguayan defender José Emilio Santamaría, captain José María Zárraga, the Brazilian Canario (Darcy Silveira dos Santos), but the magistrates Di Stéfano and Puskas were the first ‘Galacticos’.
For the blond arrow It was the fifth title in as many finals, while for Pancho Puskas, hired by Real Madrid in 1958 and who had missed the previous final against Stade de Reims due to injury, he was the only one who could play (the one in 1966 also he missed it due to injury).
Perhaps for this reason, the Hungarian would remember in an interview turned into the book Puskas on Puskas how nervous he was in that game.
Stocky Richard Kress put the German Germans ahead in the 18th minute, but between Di Stefano and Puskas they scored the next six goals in the final. “I entered the court and thought:‘ I can do it. I know how to do it and I want to do it. ’ That was how I was able to play as a veteran footballer ”, recalled Puskas, who retired in Madrid at the age of 39.
The passing game and constant movement of the players allowed Madrid to come back quickly, with a double by Di Stefano (minutes 27 and 30). After those goals, Real Madrid’s game was even more fluid and Puskas decided the title with four goals (46, 56, 60 and 71 minutes). Di Stéfano put the sentence (73 minutes).
“The kind of football they’ve played makes them the best team the world has ever known,” would say the star commentator for the BBC Kenneth Wolstenholme.
“It was one of those wonderful moments when the whole team plays brilliantly and you achieve something akin to football perfection,” Puskas would say. Jimmy Johnstone, a Celtic legend and winner of the 1967 European Cup, who was then 15, said: “The game had a great influence on my career. I had never seen football like that and I never saw it again ”.
On the Model, in 1961
That same meringue squad, with the formidable Di Stéfano, played a friendly match against Barcelona on August 13, 1961 at the Modelo stadium, before 51,746 spectators. Members of the stellar offensive, Canario, Del Sol, Di Stéfano, Puskas and Gento gave a memorable show in Guayaquil.
This newspaper reported that the performance of the whites was “dazzling” and that “Real Madrid amply justified the praiseworthy qualifications that have been awarded throughout the world. He gave a finished exhibition of good football ”.
The bullfighting team “wasted enormous doses of courage”, but Madrid won 3-1, with goals from Puskas, Gento and Di Stéfano. The Argentine Horacio discounted Tank Rosemary, reinforcement of Everest.
fifty
Sucres cost the ticket to the rostrum and 20 sucres that of general to see Real Madrid in the Model, in 1961.
5-1
Madrid won Liga (Q) in a friendly match in 1960. Goals by Ferenc Puskas (3) and Alfrefo Di Stéfano (2).
2
Sometimes Miguel Muñoz came as DT merengue, who led Spain in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
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