Ode to the Chosen Few , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - John McNicoll

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

176 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Football teams comprise 11 on-field players, but as Bill Shankly once said, while some will be the more functional members of a team, you need others to 'play the piano'. Although the footballing world is littered with superstar players, some take it upon themselves - through sheer grit and determination - to drag their respective teams to glory. Both domestically and on the world stage, these stars have brought joy to fans around the globe by playing the sweetest of tunes for their clubs and countries. From Lionel Messi to Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo to the original Ronaldo, 'Il Fenomeno', this is the story of those special players. An Ode to The Chosen Few takes a fascinating deep dive into the past glories of players and teams from different eras and cultures, alongside facts and statistics from each era.

Informations

Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	15 août 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781801503129
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
John McNicoll, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978180150155
eBook ISBN 9781801503129
---
eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Ferenc Pusk s
2. Diego Maradona
3. Eric Cantona
4. Steven Gerrard
5. Johan Cruyff
6. Lionel Messi
7. Cristiano Ronaldo
8. Ronaldo - Il Fenomeno
9. Thierry Henry
10. Francesco Totti
11. The Nearly Men
12. The Pretenders
13. The Final Whistle - The Man In The Middle
Photos
For Edward Christopher McNicoll - AKA Ted The Boss
Acknowledgements
FIRSTLY I would like to thank Pitch Publishing for giving me the chance to share my thoughts on the game we all love. It has been the most interesting but surreal experience of my life. To all the people who helped me along the way, however big or small their contribution, for that I m eternally grateful. Thanks to friends and family for listening to me going on about it for the last ten months - you know you love it really. Thanks to former referee Keith Hackett for his musings on the game, Tom Pheby for his comments on Thierry Henry, and Alan Tongue for his golden review of ex-Manchester United skipper, Bryan Robson.
Introduction
FOOTBALL TEAMS consist of 11 men on the pitch but, as Bill Shankly once noted, while some will be your more functional members of the team, you need some to play the piano. This book examines how, although the footballing world has been littered with superstar footballers, some have taken it upon themselves to drag their respective teams to glory. Both domestically and on the world stage, these stars have brought joy to fans around the globe by playing the sweetest of tunes for their club and countries. From Lionel Messi to Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo to the original Ronaldo, Il Fenomeno. This is their story. Enjoy, and all the best.
A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing. - Bill Shankly
1
Ferenc Pusk s
Ferenc truly was just a wonderful player. He had a roly-poly physique, but a wonderful left foot and he was a brilliant finisher. I would put Pusk s in any list of all-time greats. A wonderful player and a wonderful person and he really enjoyed playing the game. - Sir Tom Finney
OUR INAUGURAL taste of footballing excellence takes us back to possibly the earliest recording of a world superstar. When football was limited in how widely it was broadcast, it was only through newspaper cuttings and matches on home soil that people in the UK were able to witness the technical prowess of some of the players that lived outside its shores.
Hungarian forward, Ferenc Pusk s was possibly the first global name in football. Prior to Pusk s bursting on to the scene, a player by the name of Jose Andrade had wowed South Americans by inspiring Uruguay to World Cup success in 1930, with an emphatic 4-2 victory over neighbours Argentina in the final. Andrade has been compared to an olden-day David Beckham, with his scintillating football skills, dashing good looks and he was even rumoured to be working part-time as a gigolo, something I m sure Posh Spice might have had a bit to say about. The Black Pearl, as he was to be known, was to begin the superstar trend that was to follow.
As war raged across Europe, Ferenc Pusk s, still able to play football, signed for his local team Kispest. The forward had grown up living in and around the Kispest area, having played in his younger days for the junior teams, and with the player now coming of age, he signed papers on a professional contract in 1943. The 16-year-old made his debut against Nagyv radi and never looked back. The youngster soon attracted attention from a wider audience, so much so, in fact, that by the time he had turned 18 he was called up for the Hungarian national team to face Austria. The Second World War had ceased and international football was again at the forefront of people s minds. Pusk s wasn t to be fazed by this huge occasion and notched on his debut in a 5-2 victory, the first of many in a Hungary shirt.
Pusk s was in and out of his club side during the first few campaigns as questions over his size and agility were asked. Pusk s senior was the coach of the first team at the time and highlighted the fact that his son, despite his streamline-defying shape, was more than capable of roughing it with the big boys. His early years would see a return of 24 goals in 51 starts. As with all young players, inconsistency can have an effect on numbers and statistics. But the striker had scored a goal every other match, which is certainly not to be questioned at any level of football. It was when the forward entered into his twenties that his shooting boots wbegan firing.
As the 1940s drew to a close, Kispest were taken over by the Hungarian Ministry of Defence. The team were to be known as the Hungarian Army Team , changing their name to Budapest Honv d. With a sudden new influx of financial clout and prestige, Honv d started to attract players to the club, which began a period of domination domestically. Zolt n Czibor and S ndor Kocsis were the first big names recruited into the squad. The pair had shone in the national team alongside Pusk s and were deemed excellent additions to the team. The cream of Hungary was slowly but surely drafted in through the turnstiles and, with Pusk s now finding his feet in front of goal, Honv d, secured the first top-tier title in their history at the end of the 1949/50 season.
I say finding his feet. Pusk s had one foot for football, the other was merely for standing on. You can only kick with one foot at a time, otherwise you fall on your arse, said Pusk s when once quizzed about the rigidness in his playing style. His left foot, though, was deadly. With his frame being a little portlier than your average footballer, the power he was able to generate once in a shooting position was that of a ball being fired out of a cannon.
The army had insisted that all the players at the club be given rank status. This is where one of Pusk s s many nicknames came from as he was to be named the Galloping Major . The major was certainly galloping all over opposition defences as his goal return was starting to reveal pure class. In five consecutive seasons from 1945 to 1950, he scored over 30 goals a campaign, including becoming Europe s top goalscorer in 1947/48 with 50. These were quite phenomenal numbers from a player who was accepted as not being very mobile.
With domestic success becoming a regular occurrence for Pusk s, international accolades would soon dovetail wonderfully as a period of footballing domination was about to begin for the men from Hungary. With the Soviet Union still heavily occupying large parts of the country and the communist regime causing the worst period of oppression that the nation had ever lived through, the displays of the footballers wearing the badge had lifted the spirits of the folk at home. The Magical Magyars , as they were to be fondly known, were to embark on a near-perfect run towards world football nirvana.
For a period stretching over half a decade, Hungary played football that was out of this world. The tactics and formation that were utilised by the team were like nothing that had ever been seen before on the football pitch. The norm around football during this period was the WM formation, which consisted of a 3-2-2-3 line-up. Hungarian manager Guszt v Sebes had other ideas. He liked his players to drop into pockets and was possibly the first manager to play a deep-lying forward behind the frontline, in between midfield and attack. His 2-3-3-2 formation was revolutionary, as was the fitness regime he implemented during the team s training camps. Of course, this didn t suit all the players but Pusk s knew that, if he wanted to play, he had to toe the line.
Sir Alex Ferguson had witnessed the skill and technical ability of this team with his own eyes. The great players do things that you don t expect, so when I dodged school on that Wednesday afternoon in 1953 to watch the England vs Hungary match at a misty Wembley on TV, no one expected what we were about to witness: a new way of playing football. It was nothing short of breath-taking.
Prior to what was dubbed the Match of the Century , Hungary had competed in the summer Olympics in Finland. In July of 1952, they embarked on a run to the Olympic podium, starting with a preliminary-round win over Romania. A 2-1 victory ensured that the Magyars were off and running in the competition. Italy provided their first-round opponents and, although Pusk s had been on the periphery of the matches thus far, he was still a danger to the men charged with trying to mark him. Hungary advanced with a 3-0 win. With no goals during the opening two matches, Pusk s certainly made up for that in the quarter-final tie with Turkey. Hungary had begun to strut like a peacock as they provided their most dominant performance to date.
Leading 2-0 at half-time, Sebes could sense the confidence beginning to ooze out of his players. Pusk s joined t