For Hungary’s national day on Aug. 20, the Erkel theater of Budapest will premiere a musical about arguably the most famous Hungarian, the football player and manager Ferenc Puskás, news portal Origo reports.
“This is not just sports history. This is a story of heroism, the story of a legendary athlete and an icon,” producer László Szabó said at a press conference on Monday. “It is a story of patriotism, loyalty, love, and friendship”.
The musical by Levente Juhász, Vajk Szente and Attila Galambos, incorporates 21 songs will feature 22 musical actors, 60 dancers and 30 children.
Puskás (1927-2006) is widely regarded as one of the best football player of all time. As a forward, he scored 84 goals in 85 matches of the Hungarian national team and 514 goals in 529 league matches, first playing in Hungary for Budapest Honvéd and later for Real Madrid.
After the failed 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, Puskás left the country and received a two-year ban from the UEFA for this. He eventually joined Real Madrid in and in his first season with the team he scored four hat-tricks, one of them in his second match of his Real career.
He did not return to Hungary until 1981. Hungary’s largest, 67,215 capacity stadium in the capital Budapest is named after him.
Title image: Musical actor Tamás Veréb (C) in the role of Ferenc Puskás in the eponymous musica. (MTI/Tamás Kovács)
