Thread by @FUTVEEnglish

In 2016 and 2017, Daniuska Rodríguez and then Deyna Castellanos finished 3º in The FIFA Puskas Award. 🏆

But did you know that the Hungarian striker the prize is named after, Ferenc Puskas, played two games in Venezuela in 1957 despite a FIFA ban? 🇻🇪

(Thread ⬇️)

At the time, Puskas was playing for Honved 🇭🇺, a team he had won 5 league titles with, finishing top scorer 4 times. They were considered one of the best clubs in Europe and were touring countries such as England, Spain, and Italy when they received an invitation from Brazil.

It was to be a ten-match, six-week tour of Brazil, worth $10,000 per game, but with the recent defection in Switzerland of the entire Hungary U21 team, the Hungarian FA denied Honved permission to travel to Brazil.

They decided to continue with plans to go anyway.

The Hungarian FA sent their representative, former national team manager Gustav Sebes, to Zurich to ask FIFA General Secretary Kurt Gassmann to make the tour illegal. FIFA obliged.

The Honved players now faced the possibility of bans, as did the Brazilian clubs they would face.

Both parties pressed on and after a three-day journey to Brazil, the six-week tour began. It was only after 8 of the 10 games had been played that FIFA declared any Brazilian team that faced Honved would be banned from international competitions.

Venezuela provided the solution.

Although Venezuela had first joined FIFA in 1952, at the time of Honved’s 1957 tour of neighbouring Brazil their membership had lapsed and they would not take part in FIFA World Cup qualification for the first time until 1966 nor the Copa América until 1967 (📷).

With no FIFA jurisdiction in Venezuela, the remaining two fixtures, both against Flamengo, were rescheduled to take place in Caracas on 16 & 19 February 1957.

With the football pitch at the Estadio Universitario unlaid, the two games were played on the baseball pitch.

The first game finished 1-1 after Laszlo Budai’s 10-minute opener was levelled by Evaristo after 62’.

The second encounter was goal-laden, with Flamengo winning 5-3 and the Venezuelan crowd getting to see Ferenc Puskas himself score Honved’s first goal.

When the players returned from South America, they were met in Vienna 🇦🇹 by Hungarian FA President Marcell Nagy who informed the entire team that they were banned from all football activities for 3 months and Puskas, as captain, for 12. And FIFA would uphold the punishment.

Nagy also told them that they had 48 hours to return to Hungary or they would face a further ban of 18 months.

11 returned immediately, having seen the U21 team players released by clubs across Europe after their similar ban.

Puskas did not, and would not until 1981.

After serving his ban, Puskas eventually signed for Real Madrid and even switched national team allegiances to Spain. He remained there until his retirement, scoring 242 goals in 262 games, winning 5 La Ligas, 3 European Cups, and countless individual accolades.

In Oct 2009, 3 years after Puskas’ death at the age of 79, FIFA President Sepp Blatter created the Puskas Award in the Hungarian’s honour to recognise the most aesthetic or beautiful goal of the calendar year.

"It is important to preserve the memory of those footballing greats.”

Those two games Honved played in Venezuela in 1957 were the first of a total 9 that saw Hungarian opposition play in the South American country, but never again did Ferenc Puskas.

Thanks to Daniuska Rodríguez and Deyna Castellanos, however, the bond remains intact.

Daniuska Rodríguez scored this wonderful goal against Colombia at the 2016 South American U-17 Women's Championship. She was the only female nominee and finished 3º in the 2016 Puskas Award, ahead of the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar.

A year later, Deyna Castellanos scored this spectacular last minute goal against Cameroon at the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup to advance them past the group stages. Deyna finished 3º in both the Puskas Award and The Best FIFA Women's Player.

Sources and credits:

📕:‘The Magical Magyars’ by David Bailey
🧑🏽‍💻: @perezeliezer
💻: Wikipedia