Hungary is not only one of the 13 countries to reach the FIFA World Cup final, but also one of the 20 countries to give the football world a Ballon d’Or winner.
In a trivia contest outside Hungary, a lot of people would likely get this question wrong and think that Ferenc Puskás is the one Hungarian player to take home football’s most coveted individual title. However, that is not the case—although for political, not technical, reasons. Due to the voting system, journalists from the Soviet bloc had enough sway over the outcome to prevent Puskás, a defector from communist Hungary, from winning at the height of his career while playing for Real Madrid.
So, if not Puskás, then who? Well, the title of this article has clearly given away the answer: it is Flórián Albert, who was born 85 years ago on this day, on 15 September 1941.
Flórián Albert Born 85 Years Ago Today
Albert was born in the small town of Hercegszántó near the southern border of Hungary. He lost his mother at the age of two; thus, his grandmother and aunt played a big role in his upbringing. His father, a blacksmith by trade, relocated to Budapest when the young Flórián was 11.
That same year, he was discovered by Ferencváros (known as Budapest Kinizsi at the time, due to a forced name change by the communist regime) at an open trial for youth players. He was encouraged to go to the tryout by a friend of his older brother, who had been impressed by his skills while playing in their spare time.
Ferencváros got their name back after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Albert made his debut for the team at age 17, in 1958. And he did so in style, scoring a brace in the league game against Diósgyőr. In 1960, he won the Golden Boot of the Hungarian league with 27 goals, while leading Fradi to a second-place finish in the centre of their offensive line.
In 1963 he played a major role in Ferencváros winning their first league title after 14 years. The team then successfully defended their title the next year. Albert won a total of four domestic championships with Fradi, the latter two coming in 1967 and 1968, also in back-to-back years.
Flórián Albert was involved in Hungarian football’s only major international club trophy. In 1965 Ferencváros won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the predecessor to today’s UEFA Europa League. The Budapest green-and-whites beat the Italian side Juventus on their home turf in Turin, Italy. Interestingly, Fradi had waived their right to a rematch in Budapest in advance to make time for a lucrative exhibition tour in South America—yet they still won the trophy.
Fradi won 1–0. Albert did not score the winning goal, but played through the 90 minutes. It was left-winger Máté Fenyvesi who delivered the winner in the 74th minute with a header after a cross from right-back Dezső Novák. Funny enough, Albert was also going for the same cross, but was pushed to the ground by an Italian defender. Albert later recalled that he turned to the referee to appeal for a penalty, who informed him that his team had already scored…
At the national team level, Albert made his debut for Hungary in 1959 in a friendly against Sweden in Budapest, Hungary. He went on to represent his country at the 1962 and 1966 World Cups.
In 1962 in Chile, he scored four goals, which earned him a joint top scorer title along with five other players. Hungary went out in the Quarter Finals against Czechoslovakia. In 1966 in England, the Magyars made it out of the group again, after beating defending World Champions Brazil 3–1. However, the Soviets stopped them in the last eight again.
Albert was also in the Hungarian squad that won a bronze medal at the 1964 European Championship in Spain (known as the European Nations’ Cup at the time). He made 75 appearances and scored 31 goals for Hungary in total.
Albert was awarded the Ballon d’Or for the best European player in 1967.
He retired from football in 1974, at age 33, after spending his entire club career playing for his boyhood team Ferencváros. The club’s stadium bore his name between 2007 and 2014. Flórián Albert passed away on 31 October 2011, at age 70.
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