Vasas and Real Madrid enter the field in the second leg – from: magyarfutball.hu
Item by Giovanni Manenti
For over a decade after its inauguration, the Football Champions Cup was practically “monopolised” by the Latin teams – namely Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese – so much so that in the first 11 editions of the same – apart from the 6 victories of Real Madrid, the two each of Inter and Benfica and one of Milan – only the Germans of Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 and Partizan Belgrade reach the final act of the Event…
Subsequently the “Big Ears Cup” takes the path of the North, in particular West Germany, Holland and the UK, while to see an affirmation of an Eastern European team it is necessary to wait another 20 years, the same occurring only in 1986 , when Steaua Bucharest achieved such a feat by beating favorites Barcelona on penalties…
Before then – if we exclude the “less oriental” clubs, i.e. the aforementioned Partizan hosts the Greeks of Panathinaikos, finalists in 1971 against Ajax – for the representatives of the countries further east geographically (Czechoslovaks, Hungary, Poland, Union Soviet Union and Romania itself…) accessing the final stage represents a difficult goal to achieve, which then became practically impossible with the advent of the new formula linked to the Champions League…
And this despite the fact that, vice versa, Eastern European teams made a good impression in the second most important continental competition, i.e. the Cup Winners’ Cup, with three Soviet victories (two for Dynamo Kiev and one for Dinamo Tbilisi…) and one each for Czechoslovakia and East Germany, with Slovan Bratislava and Magdeburg respectively, as well as bringing six other teams to play in the Final…
It is clear that, as regards the “old” Champions Cup, even with the limited number of participants in just one Club per Nation, the economic power of the Western European clubs made the difference, being able to field the best in their ranks both European and South American players, even if the “Hungarian Revolution” of 1956 and its repression meant that some members of the “Golden Team” (as the Hungarian national team was nicknamed…) took refuge in Spain, in particular Puskas at Real Madrid and Kocsis and Czibor at Barcelona, where Kubala already played…
This circumstance prevented Honved Budapest – the club where six of the eleven starters who played in the 1954 Swiss World Cup Final against Germany played, including the aforementioned trio, in addition to the goalkeeper Grosics, the defender Lorant and the midfielder Bozsik – from being able to play their cards in this Continental Tournament, but nevertheless it is up to another team from the Capital to come close to accessing the final act, as we are going to tell…
Founded in 1911 as a sports club – in which the Handball and, above all, Water Polo sections also stand out with success even in the most prestigious European Cups – Vasas Budapest experienced its period of maximum splendor at the turn of the 1960s of the 20th century, when he won five (1957, 1961-’62 and 1965-’66) of the six national champion titles in his history, as well as establishing himself in the Mitropa Cup, which at the time had declined compared to the period between the two wars…
The latter is an event in which Vasas holds the record in terms of successes, having lifted the Trophy on 6 occasions (and another two defeats in the Final…), whose first two victories are a prelude to accessing the much more prestigious Champions Cup…
In fact, it was the summer of 1956, when Vasas faced Rapid Vienna in the final with home and away matches that did not shift the balance (3-3 in the Austrian capital and 1-1 in Budapest…), thus making it necessary for a match of play-off which will be played again at the “Nepstadion” on 4 August and which the hosts won with a terrifying 9-2 (quater by Gyula Szilagyi – already scored in the two previous matches – and braces by Lajos Csordas and Jozsef Raduly…) , and then repeat itself the following year…
This time, it was the Yugoslavs Vojvodina who succumbed in the double final between the end of July and the beginning of August 1957, clearly defeated 4-0 (double by Dezso Bundzsak and sharp scores by Csordas and Szilagyi) in the first leg, obtaining the only platonic satisfaction of success 2-1 in the second leg, with Bundzsak again scoring for the Hungarians…
Trophy won at the end of a season halved due to the already reported tragic events relating to the repression of the October Revolution, which had seen Vasas win its first national champion title, preceding MTK Budapest by just one point (17 to 16). having only played one Group of 11 rounds, with the addition of their own striker Prince Szilagyi – just to be clear, someone capable of scoring 295 goals in 361 appearances – graduating as Top Scorer with 17 centres…
Here, therefore, Vasas was called to represent Hungary in the third edition of the 1957-’58 Champions Cup – after in the inaugural one Voros Logobo had been eliminated in the quarter-finals (2-4 and 4-4) by Stade de Reims then defeated in the Final, while in the second Honved, in full Soviet repression, was eliminated in the Round of 16 by Athletic Bilbao, defeated 2-3 at the “San Mamés” and not going beyond 3-3 in the return match on a neutral pitch in Brussels – being paired in the first round with the Bulgarians of CDNA (later CSKA) Sofia…
Matches scheduled for 4 September 1957 in Sofia and 3 October in Budapest – curiously in the period in which the respective national teams were playing the qualification for the 1958 World Championships in Sweden – and the narrow defeat by 1-2 (with Bundzsak scoring …) in Bulgaria it is largely redeemed in the return with a heavy 6-1 with this time Csordas protagonist with a hat-trick …
Meanwhile, on 15 September at the “Vasil Levski” in Sofia, Hungary – fielding three Vasas players, namely Laszlo Sarosi, Sandor Kelei and Bundzsak – had secured qualification for the Swedish World Championship by winning 2-1 with a brace of the “legendary”, although now 35 years old, Nandor Hidegkuti, to represent a further injection of confidence in view of the continuation of the Club Tournament…
With the only partial surprise being the elimination of Benfica by Sevilla (1-3 and 0-0) in the “Iberian Derby), the Round of 16 offers the Magyars a challenge against the Swiss Young Boys Bern, obstacle that turns out to be tougher than expected, given that in the first leg played in Geneva, only a goal by Csordas in the 90th minute avoided defeat and then it was up to the same attacker to secure qualification (1-1 and 2-1) in the return with a brace in the first quarter of an hour of play, making Schneiter’s goal in vain in the final minutes…
Having entered the match after being exempted from the first round, the reigning champions Real Madrid overwhelm the Belgians Antwerp (2-1 and 6-0), while the quarter-final draw is absolutely worthy of the prestige of the Review, offering the challenge all Spanish between Real and Sevilla, as well as Milan-Borussia Dortmund, Manchester United-Red Star Belgrade and Vasas-Ajax Amsterdam…
Obviously, the Dutch are only “distant relatives” of the squad that will dominate the European scene at the beginning of the 70s, even though in the first leg match played on 5 February 1958 at the “Olympic Stadium” – usually used for international matches – they take the lead 2-0 at half-time (a brace from defender Ouderloand…), which Bundzsak replied in the last quarter of the game for the final 2-2, and then “closed the score” on the return leg in front of 70,000 at the “Nepstadion”, thanks to a heavy 4-0 already achieved in the 40th minute, thanks to Szilagyi’s brace and the sharp performances of Bundzsak and Csordas…
On the pitches, there is no history in the “Spanish derby”, with Real in an avalanche (8-0 and 2-2) and Di Stefano scoring four times, just as the victory is comfortable (1-1 and 4-1). qualification of Milan at the expense of Borussia, while upon returning from the trip to Belgrade with qualification for the semi-finals (1-0 and 3-3) in hand, what is labeled across the Channel as the ” Munich Air Disaster”, or the plane crash in which 8 English players lost their lives and two others (Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower) were unable to continue their competitive activity…
Manchester which the semi-final draw matches with Milan which, with what remains of the famous “Busby Babes” – only Gregg, Foulkes and Viollet from the Velgrado team take the field – limits the damage (1-2) to “Old Trafford”, and then ticketed the final in Brussels with a clear 4-0 on the return leg at San Siro…
For Vasas, vice versa, the away match at the “Santiago Bernabeu” is scheduled for 2 April 1958 against the holders of the Trofeo del Trofeo who, in the previous 10 European Cup matches played in front of their own fans, achieved as many victories with 41 goals scored and conceded just 5…!!
And the “toll” is also paid by the Hungarians who, on a rainy evening, concede the first goal after just 9′ by Di Stefano, who then doubles the lead from a penalty towards the end of the first half of the game, before collapsing at the beginning of the second half, with Marsal and again “Saeta Rubia” scoring for the 4-0 which guarantees access to the Final…
There is still a return match to be played, however, and the scenario that the “Nepstadion” offers on the afternoon of 16 April 1958 is that of “great occasions” with as many as 100 thousand spectators in the stands to cradle a dream that is almost about to come true when, after ending the first half with a 1-0 lead thanks to Bundzsak’s center in the 25th minute, the home team doubled their lead in the 8th minute of the second half with a penalty kicked converted by Csordas…
There would still be plenty of half an hour to “accomplish the miracle”, but the Spanish defense reorganized itself and held firm until the 90th minute, so that at the final whistle from the French referee Pierre Schwinte, Real could celebrate its third consecutive final, which will be won by beating Milan 3-2 in extra time…
Vasas, for its part, in the further five participations in the Champions Cup, will always be eliminated in the first or second round, with the exception of the 1967-’68 edition where, also thanks to two favorable draws – 9-1 overall to the Irish of Dundalk and 11-1 overall to Icelandic Valur – reaches the quarter-finals, where the match against Eusebio & Co.’s Benfica (0-0 and 0-3) represents an obstacle impossible to overcome…
In the history of the Club, the pride of “having scared” the sacred monsters of Real remains, and that is no small thing…