The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the history of excellence in football. Since official awards are frequently less than fully trustworthy, I decided to watch my way through football history and build up an educated opinion on the great players and teams of the past. I do so by watching roughly 50 full matches per season, if that much footage has survived to this day. If not, I simply watch all the matches I can find. Having done so, I select a Team of the Season (or Tournament) and briefly portrait the players and why I chose them.
At the time of publishing the blogpost you are currently reading, this blog covers the years 1950-1954 and 2003-2024. A big spreadsheet at the end displays all my choices and applies a crude rating system to them.
Every season that I watch has its own charme, certain characteristics that make it unique, never to be repeated. Furthermore, most seasons contain some specific highlights. Be it individual matches, maybe even individual performances, or certain players who produced a whole season that transcends the normal ‘world class’ level that constitutes the state of the art at any given time. However, every once in a while the stars align and a season becomes truly historic. In my opinion the 1953-1954 season is such a year.
There are essentially two reasons for this: first, the Mighty Magyars, arguably the greatest international side of the 20th century, hit their peak. This is the year they beat England 6-3 at Wembley and 7-1 in Budapest. Second, Di Stefano arrives in Europe and immediately begins to transform Real Madrid into arguably the biggest club in the world. The competition for Player of the Season will get even more intense later on in the decade when a certain young Brazilian enters the stage, but the overall quality of the team, especially in midfield and attack, is already extremely high in 1953-54. The dominance of the Hungarian team is reflected by the fact that for the first time ever, 11 players from one team make a single team (including the bench, of course).
I want to thank my two co-authors for this post: Rob Fielder, who also helped me with the selection process and generally contributes to everything that is good about this series. And Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling, the German author on all things football history. His book on the history of FC Barcelona in particular was one of the reasons I got interested in football history in the first place. For him to contribute the profile on Di Stefano is a great honour. Thank you!
Now, without further ado, here is the team:
Manager: Gusztav Sebes
Bench: Ghezzi, Grocsis, Beara; N. Santos, Lantos, J. Navarro; Happel, Lorant, Posipal; D. Santos, Buzanzky, Rickaby; Ocwirk, Zakarias, Munoz; Nesti, Didi, Cajkovski; Kubala, Schiaffino, Liedholm; F. Walter, Skoglund, Baltazar; Finney, Czibor, Mullen; Nordahl, Charles, Wilshaw; Matthews, Boniperti, Julinho
Best Player: Nandor Hidegkuti
Best Team: Hungary
Best Match: England – Hungary 3-6, 25.11.1953