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Hungarians in the El Clasico derbies
23 Jul. 2018.
Of the members of Hungary's 'Golden Team', Ferenc Puskás was the most successful in the history of the 'El Clasico' clashes, the 'Galloping Major' being the only player to score hat-tricks in both the Camp Nou and the Bernabéu stadia. Puskás first played against Barca in October 1958, but his first goal only came in 1961 when his goal gave Real a 3-0 lead in a game they went on to win 3-2.
The first Hungarian to appear in one of the world's biggest derbies Ferenc Plattkó (or Platkó), the legendary Barcelona goalkeeper who appeared in Rafael Alberti's literature and played for the Catalans until 1930, although he didn't appear in either game in the first season of the national championship in 1929-1930. As a coach, Plattkó's first El Clasico came as early as the 1934-1935 season but it wasn't a happy one for him as Madrid thrashed their rivals 8-2 in Real's Chamartin Stadium.
Interestingly, László Kubala could never really get going in El Clasico. "Kuksi" first played in the fixture in March 1951 when he celebrated a 4-2 win, Barca's César the hero that day with a hat-trick, but in 13 matches he lost more than he won against Real.
Kubala's influence thoroughly explains how the great Barca of the 1950s came to sign Tibor Szalay (true, he didn't ever play against Real), Zoltán Czibor and Sándor Kocsis, while Miklós Szegedi from Transylvania (known there as Niculae Simatoc) arrived before all of them. Szegedi had earlier won the Hungarian league championship with Nagyvárad AC before leaving Eastern Europe to join Barca where he played against Real Madrid in 1950 and 1951, winning handsomely 7-2 once but also losing badly 4-1 on the other occasion.
In 1964, Real defeated Barca 2-1 thanks to a winning goal from 'Pancho' as Puskás was universally known to the Spanish people. In addition, we didn't mention earlier in the league statistics that in the 1960 European Cup semi-final tie, Puskás scored once in Madrid and twice in Barcelona to help take Real into the final where they defeated Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3, Puskás with four goals and Di Stefano with the other three...
Puskás also played in the first ever televised El Clasico in Madrid on February 15, 1959, one won by the 'King's Team' 1-0 thanks to a goal from Herrera.
Back to Barcelona: Zoltán Czibor played against Real Madrid in red and blue only once, but it was a memorable event. In October 1958, Czibor was sent off along with Real's Santamaria, but only after he'd scored once already, his team going on to beat the capitaly city side by a whopping 4-0 scoreline.
Sándor Kocsis scored twice (in 1960 and 1962) in three matches against 'Los Blancos' and also played and scored a goal in the afore-mentioned Champions League semi-final. Since Kocsis, Hungarian players have only made it as far as the teams' reserve sides, so it's a question as to when we'll be able to welcome the next Hungarian to this world-famous fixture.
HUNGARIANS IN EL CLASICO:
Elemér Berkessy's record against Real Madrid: 2 matches, 1-0-1 record.
Nicosia (Simatec) Miklós (Nicolae) record against Real Madrid: 2 matches, 1-0-1 record.
László Kubala's record against Real Madrid: 13 matches, 2 goals, 1 red card, 5-0-8 record.
Sándor Kocsis's record against Real Madrid: 3 matches, 2 goals, 2-0-1 record
Zoltán Czibor's record against Real Madrid: 1 match, 1 red card, 1-0-0 record
Ferenc Puskás's record against Barcelona: 11 matches, 9 goals, 8-0-3 record.
Other Hungarians to have appeared in the fixture: Ferenc Plattkó, Tibor Szalay
Data refers to championship meetings.
Source: Nemzeti Sport Online
