Thursday, May 4 2006 12:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Paris: Olympic champions, invincible for four years and the legendary Ferenc Puskas leading their attack, Hungary's victory in the 1954 World Cup was expected to be a formality.

Since the start of the decade, Puskas' magical Magyars had been the authors of the greatest chapter in Hungarian football history, helping to revolutionise attitudes and approaches to the game.

Two famous, crushing defeats of England had merely served to confirm Hungary as the most potent outfit in international football during the early 1950s.

"It was like playing men from outer space," England's centre-half Syd Owen remarked in the aftermath of his team's 7-1 thrashing in Budapest in 1954.

As the World Cup in Switzerland got underway later that year, Hungary looked unstoppable.

But what millions of Hungarians fervently had hoped would be a celebratory fiesta for Puskas and fellow members of the 'Golden Squad', turned out in fact to be the beginning of the end.

When the Hungarians returned to Budapest after the World Cup, they returned not as heroes but as villains, with Puskas receiving hate mail and placed under a police guard.

The fact that Puskas and his team-mates had been the best side in world football for four years counted for nothing in the eyes of disgruntled fans. In the game that mattered, the 1954 final against West Germany, they had lost.

The defeat in Berne was one of the most famous upsets in the tournament's history, and left Hungary's 1954 team in the select club of great sides who never win a World Cup. How had it happened?

Everything had gone to plan for Gustavo Sebes' side in the early rounds of the tournament. They opened with a 9-0 rout of South Korea and followed it with an 8-3 trouncing of an under-strength West German side.

Crucially in the German match Puskas suffered an injury. But Hungary were still too good for Brazil in the quarter-final, the notorious 'Battle of Berne', and overcame Uruguay in the semis 4-2 with another scintillating show.

In the final, Hungary again faced West Germany. But debate had raged over the fitness of Puskas, then desperate to play.

Conflicting rumours circulated about the player until, just before the final, he was cleared to play. In hindsight the selection of a Puskas clearly not fully fit was a mistake.

Early on however it looked as if the gamble would pay off. Puskas had put Hungary 1-0 ahead after six minutes and shortly after that the favourites went 2-0 ahead through Zoltan Czibor.

Germany refused to buckle under the onslaught however and drew level through goals from Max Morlock and Helmut Rahn.

With both sides going close in the second half it was Germany who conjured up the winning goal, Rahn adding another seven minutes from time. A late Puskas goal was disallowed for offside and Germany had won.

"In the end we deserved what we got," Puskas said years later.

"It was our own fault: we thought we had the match won, gave two stupid goals away and let them back into it," he said.

For Gyula Grosics, Hungary's goalkeeper, the wounds of defeat were still raw decades later.

"It was the saddest day in the history of Hungarian football," he said. "It's more than 40 years ago now, but if someone was to wake me up tomorrow morning and remind me of that match, I'd burst into tears,"he said.