Ferenc Puskás would have been 93 today

As evidenced on his official birth certificate, Ferenc Puskás was born in the Rókus hospital in the 8th district of Budapest on 1st April 1927. However, this only became clear 15 years ago when it was confirmed in a family-authorised biography that Puskás' mother 'Manci néni' successfully attempted to declare that her son had actually been born on 2nd April, not one day earlier on what is known as April Fools' Day - it was for this reason that she feared Ferenc would be bullied if the truth would be known. So it was that all over the world it was recorded that 2nd April 1927 was the birthdate of Hungary's most successful footballer.  

Ferenc Puskás only played for two clubs in the whole of his official, competitive playing career, for Kispest/Honvéd from 1939 until 1956 and for Real Madrid from 1958 until 1967. He scored 358 goals in 349 Hungarian league matches and 159 goals in 179 matches in Spain. Puskás scored hat-tricks on five separate occasions in the Hungarian national team and no one has ever matched his feat of scoring four goals in one single European Cup or UEFA Champions League final. He was top goalscorer in a Hungarian league season four times while in Kispest/Honvéd colours and another four times in Spain for Real Madrid.

In Hungarian national-team colours, he scored 84 goals in 85 appearances. He was a five-time Hungarian. and six-time Spanish league champion, three-time winner of the European Cup, Olympic champion and World Cup silver medallists. As a coach, Puskás won the Greek league with Panathinaikos and took the club to the finals of the European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. In Australia, he became Australian champion and domestic cup winner with South Melbourne Hellas. By no means an after-thought; as a private person, as a sports personality, as a friend and as a father he set a positive example throughout his life.