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Golden Team

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The Aranycsapat (Aranycsapat, lit Hung: Aranycsapat) is the sobriquet for the world famous Hungary national football team of the 1950s widely perceived by historians to be the finest national side ever in international competition. Other names commonly used for this team are the Magical or "Aranycsapat", and is forever remembered as the team that launched the modern football era and a new order in tactical nous. Among other accomplishments, it is celebrated as having partaken in three of the most written about matches of all-time, including "Game of the Century" (England v Hungary (1953), the "Battle of Berne", and the "Miracle at Berne" of 1954.

One standout quality is its famous distinction of attaining the highest ELO football rating ever recorded with 2173 points in 1954, along with the second highest rating of 2153 in 1956. To caliper the relative power of this team across different eras, soccer's most fabled side, Brazil national football team, registered the 3rd highest ELO rating with 2151 when its theoretical strenght peaked with a 6-2 win over Czechoslovakia in the 1962 World Cup final.

Captained by international football's first superstar, the incomparable Ferenc Puskás, Hungary laid claim to holding the highest platuea in ELO football ratings in the mythical 2100 point band the longest, an incredible 24 consecutive game streak from June 20th 1954 to May 19th 1956. Most pundits also forecast this elevated performance likely will never be paralleled. According to http://www.eloratings.new, only three other nations have vied to pass the ELO 2100 mark, Brazil, Argentina national football team, and the Netherlands national football team. The second longest streak for consecutive games with an ranking of +2100 was 15 games by Brazil from Aug 10, 1997 to Feb. 9 1998.

One of the most feared and tremendous talent rich sides in football annals, it was built around the prodigal playmaking of captain Ferenc Puskás, forward Sándor Kocsis, withdrawn striker Nándor Hidegkuti, and ranks as one of international sport's most dominant forces in the 20th century. Hungary holds the longest consecutive run of matches unbeaten with 33 international games, a record that still stands. Argentina holds the second longest run when they put together a string of 31 unbeaten matches from 1991 to 1993.

Thought its not widely known when the sobriquet was first popularly applied to the team, by 1950 it was able to surpass milestones not set before or since. Tradition and pundits agree that the Magnificent Magyars made their debut in a 6-2 win over Poland in June of 1950 to start what was to become a legendary sojourn as high mandarins of football that only come to an end in February 1956. During a vaunted six year run that many likened to a safari on the international stage, if we omit the 1954 World Cup final that proved highly controversial, they were undefeated in worldclass events with a record that is inconceiveably remarkable. They scored 43 victories, 7 ties and no losses. Using a less puritan and more broadstroke view, from May 8th 1949 using the same criterea to the end date, the team could reset their record to 50 victories, 8 draws, and 1 defeat, a campaign that dwarfed football's landscape. Most expert opinions conceed that in team athletics, amauteur or professional, it would be near impossible to sustain just two defeats in 60 contests.

With a revolutionary new tactical awakening that transformed the sport's order forever and overthrew the old preconceptions of how football was to be played, and aided by a mercurial fleet of forwards Ferenc Puskás, Sándor Kocsis, deep-lying striker Nándor Hidegkuti, midfielder József Bozsik and left wing Zoltán Czibor, it smashed through the playoff field at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki in a 5-game demonstration of power and sturdy defense, scoring 20 goals and allowing 2. It beat the world's 7th best team, Yugoslavia 2-0 in the final. On May 17th 1953, it defeated a powerful Italian team 3-0 in the Dr. Gerõ International Cup, a regional tournament and the forerunner of the European Football Championship to firmly earn a reputation as the world's second best team. This was the second occassion in ten months the Hungarians had sunk the famed Azzurri 3-0. On July 5th, Hungary assumed the premier #1 rank in football with a 4-2 victory over Sweden in Stockholm, a rank that it would not yeild until June 12 1956, a span of 42 matches.

So spectacularly crushing was the masterclass of Hungary's orbital offense World Soccer's Selection of the 100 Greatest Footballers of All Time (www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/best-x-players-of-y.html#ws100)has seen fit to feature six players from the Golden Team, the most of any one national team:

1. József Bozsik 2. Zoltán Czibor 3. Gyula Grosics 4. Nándor Hidegkuti 5. Sándor Kocsis 6. Ferenc Puskás

The Golden Team 1950 - 1956

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