Sandor Kocsis

Sándor Kocsis Péter (Budapest, September 21, 1929-Barcelona, July 22, 1979) was a Hungarian footballer who was a member of the mythical Hungarian national team that was nicknamed the magical Magyars. He is considered one of the best center forwards in the history of football and of FC Barcelona.

Active in the 1950s and 1960s, winner, among other titles, of gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, of four NB1 titles, of two Spanish leagues, two King's Cups, of the European Cup of Fairs 1958-60 and also runner-up in the 1954 Soccer World Cup, of which he was the top scorer with 11 goals.

Biography

He was born in Budapest on September 21, 1929 into a family of Swabians from the Danube who had to magyrize their last name from Wagner to Kocsis and began playing soccer in the streets, where he caught the attention of seekers of talents of the Ferencváros team. In the ranks of Ferencvaros he won the league title in 1948, at just 19 years old. Already in the 1949/50 season he joined the army team, the Honved, while fulfilling his military obligations. Sandor became the top scorer in the Hungarian championship for three consecutive seasons. His career in Hungary ended with the conquest of five Hungarian League titles and also being the top scorer in the league on three occasions, 1951, 1952 and 1954 scoring 30, 36 and 33 goals respectively.

In 1956, when the Soviet invasion of Hungary occurred, Kocsis along with Ferenc Puskás, Zoltán Czibor and some other colleagues who were in Vienna, decided not to return to Hungary after a match in the 1956-57 European Cup against the Athletic Club. They played one of the matches at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels and lost 6-5 on aggregate in the tie. After the game, they toured Italy, Portugal, Spain and Brazil and when they returned to Europe, some of the players returned to their country, like József Bozsik, but others like Czibor, Kocsis and Puskás found a team outside their country. Despite the difficult times they were going through, they continued to be linked to football thanks to Hungaria, a team made up of exiles. After a brief stint at the Swiss Young Fellows, he arrived at Fútbol Club Barcelona where he met Czibor and Ladislao Kubala again and where he experienced moments of glory and moments of frustration.

Among the moments of glory, the conquest of the 1960 European Fairs Cup against Birmingham City Football Club stands out, although they were not present in said final. They also won two Spanish League titles in 1959 and 1960 and two Spanish Cups, the first in 1959, when Barcelona beat Granada CF in the final 4-1, in a match in which Kocsis scored two goals and the second in 1963 when the Catalan team beat Real Zaragoza 3-1, in a match in which Kocsis also scored another goal.

On the other hand, it is necessary to highlight as frustrating the defeat of the final of the European Cup in Bern against the Portuguese Benfica, in a scenario that brought back bad memories since that was where his dream of winning a World Cup ended when he lost in that historic final of 1954 against the German soccer team. In the 1961/62 season he offered his best level as a Barça player, in which he scored 17 goals in 20 games.

He retired in 1966, at the age of 37, and ran a cocktail bar in Barcelona until 1979, the year in which he apparently committed suicide at the age of 49, by jumping off the seventh floor of a hospital of Barcelona in which cancer was being treated.

Kocsis's remains were transferred to Budapest, his hometown, in September 2012, after they had remained in Barcelona since 1979, when he died. Kocsis's family received a request from the Hungarian government to transfer the remains of the player to the country's capital, since he was the only figure that until now did not lie in his country of origin. Kocsis's son accepted the proposal of that his father rested in the Basilica of Budapest together with Ferenc Puskás, another illustrious scorer with whom he shared time.

National team

He was capped by the Hungary national soccer team 68 times, scoring a total of 75 goals. He became known internationally at the 1954 Soccer World Cup, held in Switzerland, and in which, as a center forward for the Hungarian soccer team, he scored 11 goals and received the World Cup top scorer award.. His goals were the basis for Hungary, which was a finalist in the championship. This selection would give a football lesson to the finalists of the previous edition: Brazil and Uruguay. Kocsis was one of the members of that mythical Hungarian team of the fifties known by the nickname of the Mighty Magyars.

He made his debut in the national team on June 6, 1948 in a Balkans Cup match played in Budapest, in which Hungary beat Romania 9-0 with two goals from debutant Kocsis. He subsequently won the Olympic gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games.

When he played his last international game (#68) on October 14, 1956 in Vienna (Austria) due to the political events his country was experiencing, he had 75 goals.

Participations in World Cups

World	Headquarters	Outcome	Parties	Goles	Prom.
1954 World Cup Soccer/Football	SwitzerlandSwitzerland	Subfield	5	11	2.2

Clubs

Club	Country	Year	Parties	Goles	Prom.
Kőbányai T.C.	Hungary	1945-1946	5	0	0.00
Ferencváros T. C.		1946-1950	84	70	0.83
Budapest Honvéd SE		1950-1956	160	177	1.11
Young Fellows Juventus	SwitzerlandSwitzerland	1957-1958	11	7	0.64
F. C. Barcelona	Spain	1958-1966	75	41	0.55
Total career			335	295	0.88

Honours of Prizes

National Cups (8)

Title	Club	Country	Year
NB1	Ferencváros	Hungary	1950
NB1	Budapest Honvéd		1952
NB1			1954
NB1			1955
Spanish League	F. C. Barcelona	Spain	1958-1959
Copa del Generalísimo			1958
Spanish League			1959-1960
Copa del Generalísimo			1963

International Cups (2)

Title	Club	Country	Year
Gold at the Olympic Games	Selection of Hungary	FinlandFinland	1952
European Fairs Cup	F. C. Barcelona	Spain	1960

*Includes selection

Individual awards