April 2, 1927 - Budapest, Hungary: The birth of football's mightiest Magyar.

"We invented the sport, therefore we are the best" - Common English sentiment during the 1930s and 40s.

And during the 1930s this sentiment was largely correct. Austria's Wunderteam came to London in 1932 and lost 4-3. Then world champions Italy narrowly lost 3-2 at the 'Battle of Highbury' in 34. England, who had declined to participate in the three pre-war World Cups still held the unofficial title of 'World's best team' until 1945.

After the war, this sentiment naturally remained. Even a 1-0 loss to the USA at the 1950 World Cup, which is conceivably football's biggest upset ever, was written off by the media as simply bad luck. And England had never lost at Wembley, and no group of 11 foreigners could come to Her Majesty's back yard and beat us at our own game.

Of course, on November 25, 1953 Hungary arrived at Wembley, scored four goals in 25 minutes, beat Matthews, Mortenson, Wright and Co 6-3 before inviting the English back to Budapest for a rematch that ended 7-1 in favour of the Hungarians.

And football never looked back. The WM had been thrashed by Hungary's innovative 4-2-4/3-2-3-2, Nandor Hidegkuti had pioneered the playmaker role, the flat back-four had seen its earliest iteration and football tactics were to evolve at breakneck speeds for the next 20 years.

But there is one moment in 6-3 that has come to be seen as the genesis of modern football. Exactly midway through the first half the ball found its way to Hungary's genius Number 10, and Billy Wright, England's captain and star defender lunged for the ball. A second later the ball was in the net and Wright was on his arse. He had been thoroughly embarrassed by this unknown Hungarian. A man who with one drag-back had told everyone watching that he was now football's greatest player.

In one moment Ferenc Puskas had killed the British empire.

India was gone, and Africa was somewhat hopelessly being clung onto. The United States had solidified their position as the world's superpower and the Soviet Union loomed ominously over both the western and eastern world. Britain was now a broke little island, its place in world affairs quickly downgraded. And then Puskas came along and took football away the British, just as Don Bradman had done with cricket a decade before.

But why Hungary, and why Puskas?

The prospering of Hungarian football during a period of brutal Stalinist oppression throughout Eastern Europe would on the face of it seem highly unlikely. But it's often forgotten that had World War II never happened we may well have seen Hungary's footballing rise a decade earlier. The talents of Puskas, Kocsis, Hidegkuti, Czibor and Grosics were the inheritors of the side that had lost the 1938 World Cup final to Italy.

And in Puskas they had a truly once in a generation player. Born on April 2, 1927 in a suburb of Budapest he was first offered a trial at the age of 15 for Kispest AC and he quickly established himself as his club's leading player. But Puskas' early 20s most critically took place during a time of relative political calm in Hungary between 1946 and 1949 following a brutal 18 months in the immediate aftermath of the war, which included the worst case of hyperinflation in history.

A quasi-democratic coalition government had been established in 1946 and these three years saw a time of minor social progress off the pitch and tactical innovation on it. Bela Guttmann and Martin Bukovi came to prominence at the time as the nations leading coaches and the national team picked up where they left of in 1938 with their new crop of outstanding talent. New footballing ideals began to grow and with Guttmann the sport had its first man manager and fitness freak. Guttmann demanded both physical and mental excellence from all his players, and his methods would ultimately find him success in Benfica 10 years later.

But in 1949 Guttmann, having bizarrely fallen out with Puskas during a brief spell in charge of the national team, left for Italy amidst a Stalinist backed communist takeover of Hungary. Suspected communist opponents throughout Hungary, just as in the USSR, were exiled, imprisoned and often publicly executed. Hungary, for all intents and purposes had become a Soviet puppet state, with leader Matyas Rakosi being described as "Stalin's best pupil".

Hungarian football meanwhile became centred around Puskas' club of Kispest. The working-class, far right sympathising Ferencvaros was largely disbanded and the Hungarian Workers Party took control of Kispest, renaming them Budapest Honved and installed Gustav Sebes, a staunch socialist as coach of the national team.

The communist party saw Hungary's rise in football as a key cornerstone of their socio-political policies, so much so that the construction of a new national stadium was to serve as the highlight of Hungary's forthcoming industrial five-year plan. Sebes went about using his considerable power as both National team manager and Hungarian director of sport to establish vast scouting networks across the country and during the three years after 1949 he experimented greatly with tactics, formations and personnel.

By the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki Sebes had created quite the team based almost entirely around two clubs, Puskas' Honved, and MTK, a traditionally liberal Budapest club. Hungary demolished their competition, beating Romania 2-1, Italy 3-0, Turkey 7-1, Sweden 6-0 and Yugoslavia 2-0 in the final. Playing a formation that on paper looks most like 3-2-3-2, Hungary had captured the affections of everyone in Helsinki that summer with their fluid attacking football. And the next year they went to Wembley and embarrassed the English.

Sebes' socialist vision of football had worked beautifully. And ironically, during a time where the expression of individuality could earn one the death penalty in Hungary, Sebes had created a team based around flair, innovation, teamwork and spontaneity. Where the Soviet and Hungarian governments had an insanely twisted imagination of socialism, Sebes had got it right.

Puskas continued on with his life as football's best player, leading the Hungarian goalscoring charts in 48', 49', 50', and 53'. He also found himself as Hungary's leading celebrity, an honour that to many, he still holds to this day.

Naturally, he was used as a communist propaganda tool by Rakosi's increasingly vicious government. Which is an idea that is actually just stealing from the propaganda policies of Mussolini and Hitler during the 30s. The Soviet Union and Hungary really seemed to have no concept of irony at this point it time.

But with the death of Stalin in 1953, the flames of revolution began to be fanned in Hungary, and Rakosi now had to forge a new friendship with Nikita Khrushchev.

On the pitch Hungary went from strength to strength, swatting aside everyone in the 1954 World Cup before being miraculously upset by the Germans in the Miracle of Bern. This loss, which was Hungary's solitary defeat between 1951-56 resulted in small scale riots throughout Budapest and large scale general drunkenness and public disorder through the rest of the country.

Hungary were good enough to rebound and not lose again for another two years, but their reputation as the Mighty Magyars had been destroyed. The Hungarian government rather hilariously edited the full version of the game and screened highlights throughout cinemas for the next few weeks that showed Hungary to have 90% of the games possession. But the 3-2 scoreline was irreversible.

Puskas continued to lead Honved to League titles in 54 and 55 but in October 1956 the flames of revolution turned into a bonfire when a group of students took to the streets of Budapest in peaceful protest. Police fired tear gas, the protesters responded violently, riots ensued and within two weeks the Hungarian Workers government had collapsed.

And then Khrushchev sent in the Red Army.

Just six days later Hungary was once again in the control of the totalitarian leadership of Rakosi.

Puskas and Honved meanwhile were in Belgium playing in the first round of the European Cup. Seeing that Hungary was no place to live if one wanted any semblance of free-will, Puskas, Czibor and Kocsis decided to stay in Europe. And despite interest from AC Milan, Juventus and Man United it would be two years before Puskas would play professional football again. UEFA, under pressure from FIFA and the Hungarian government imposed a two-year ban on Puskas for refusing to return to Budapest.

When the ban finished he signed for Real Madrid at the age of 31. Teaming up with Alfredo di Stefano, Madrid were unstoppable for the next two years, which all came to a glorious culmination in the famous 1960 European Cup final as Di Stefano scored three, and Puskas got four in a 7-3 hammering of Eintracht Frankfurt.

But the years had began to add up for both Puskas and Di Stefano, who left in 1964, while Puskas stayed on for one more European Cup triumph in 66' before hanging up his boots at the age of 39.

Puskas would have been 89 years old today. His legacy and unrivalled adulation in Hungary lives on. A modest guy by all accounts, it was never his intention to change football in the manner he did. But it was indeed the talents and innovations of 1950s Hungarian football, with Puskas in the middle of it all, that was the source of the modern game we have today.