A night for gentle dreams

The Ferenc Puskas Stadium in Budapest has long been due for demolition but with its marble halls still echoing to the legendary achievements of yesteryear, it’s a place of fading grandeur which still has the power to evoke fantasy football.

Certainly, it seemed to put Giovanni Trapattoni in a dreamy mood yesterday, as he recalled visiting the old ground for the first time at the tender age of 18. And, with that, he was briefly lost in reverie about the ‘Mighty Magyars’, the team of Hidegkuti, Bozsik and the great Puskas himself — the Galloping Major — who revolutionised football in the 1950s and, on this very site in 1954, handed out a 7-1 humiliation to England.

“A fantastic team,” said Trapattoni with undisguised relish.