Real Madrid would reach three more finals in the 60s with only Benfica playing in more. They would win the tournament as many times as any other side in the decade. They would dominate La Liga. For any other club, it would be considered a golden era but this was Real Madrid and they lost their grip on the handles of the European Cup. They transitioned from immortal to mortal.

It was only natural; the team was ageing, restrictions from the Spanish government made the importation of global superstars harder, Bernabéu’s arms struggled to reach into his bottomless pockets but most of all, the rest of Europe had caught up. In US sports where the salary caps and draft process aim to ensure competitive parity, it is common to squeeze one last run for a team before several years in the doldrums allow you to reset the makeup of the squad. This was the Real Madrid post-Hampden.

That it was Barcelona, who ensured Real would not win a sixth consecutive title, left a bitter taste. That it was done in controversial circumstances left the Madristas feeling their command of the silver cup had grown tiresome in the corridors of power. They’d had their crowning glory, now it was time to let the rest of the continent taste some champagne.

Madrid had not played in the competition since Glasgow. Barcelona, with new coach Ljubiša Broćić replacing Herrera, had eased past Belgian champions Lierse 5-0 on aggregate to set up a clash with their rivals in the first round proper. Real Madrid v FC Barcelona, again, six months after their first encounter in the competition. They have faced each other four times in the European Cup, three times in the semis, splitting two eras, the 60s and the 2000/10s. On both occasions, they were the best two teams on the continent.

In the first leg it was a familiar tale. Real scored in the first minute through Mateos. Barca, however showed stronger resolve, Suarez equalized to make it 1-1 but a quick response from Gento put Real in front at the break. They would hold the lead until the 87th minute, when, Arthur Ellis, determined that Koscis was fouled for a penalty by the new Real keeper José Vicente. In Madrid the foul was outside the box, and Kocsis was offside with the linesman raising his flag. Pictures of Ellis with his flag raised at the moment Koscis fell suggested he too had been acknowledging the infraction despite his later protestations. For Barcelona, the penalty was the least they deserved after Villaverde had a goal ruled out for offside. Suarez converted and Barca knew a win at home would see them through.

The consolation for Ellis was that he wasn’t Reg Leafe, referee for the return leg. As mentioned previously the duo had avoided any controversy in the semi-final earlier in the year, but no such fate would befall them, and primarily Leafe on this occasion. The issue stems from the four yes you read that correctly, four, goals that Real had disallowed in the Camp Nou.

Barcelona went ahead through a long-range deflected strike from Martí Vergés but it was the visitors who dominated the ball. Del Sol had had the first disallowed goal prior to the Vergés strike, Pachin and Di Stéfano would then also have goals chalked off and a further Di Stéfano header was adjudged to have been cleared off the line. A terrific diving header from Evaristo ten minutes from time after a mistimed attempt by Vicente sealed the game although Real did not bow out quietly. Canario pulling one back soon after and Marquitos missing a great chance as time expired.

Di Stéfano was livid and years later suggested a conspiracy was at play: ‘UEFA people didn’t like us dominating ‘their’ cup. That’s why they got English referees to make sure we didn’t. After all, English referees were supposed to be the best. No one would suspect anything.’ Bernabéu paid his players their win bonus anyway, for their ‘moral victory.’^

The eternal Champions were out. There would be a new name on the trophy next summer.

Stan Cullis was right when he said that to win the European Cup would require a different style of play than domestically. The prestige of the European Cup in the early 60s to try and be the first team other than Real to win it, then to be the first from your country etc. was worth it for ambitious coaches. The 60s are seen as a battle of ideologies. This did not occur because of the European Cup. Cattenacio, as we’ve seen, was developing on its own within Italy. Gipo Viani was not thinking of how to stop Di Stéfano and Puskás on his walk in Salerno. However, it is certainly interesting to consider how the consistent competition throughout Europe could entrench existing National beliefs or open your mind, depending on your viewpoint e.g. Cullis versus Busby.

The decade that started with Di Stéfano and Puskás ended with Cruyff and Best. W-M gave way for 4-2-4, 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. Unbridled attacking freedom was halted by rigid defensive order which was dethroned by Total Football. Of the seven coaches who won the competition between the 1960/61 season to the 69/70, six are in the top 20 of France Football’s 50 best coaches of all time (Jock Stein is listed at 34). It is a reasonable claim to say that Modern Football was born on the battlefield of the European Cup in the 60s.

The simple effect of teams from different football cultures competing on such a regular basis created a melting point of ideas but ideologies remained largely formed on tribalist lines. This was nothing new, but the frequency with which a team, and often by extension, a country’s way of playing could be assessed relative to their continental peers, was transformative. Conjecture had been thrown out of the window. It was clear which teams, nations and leagues were playing the best football. And the teams who would win the European Cup were the ones who were able to recognize those various strengths and weaknesses, harness their own identity and sculpt an entire organization in their own image.

We were now entering the era of the Coach.

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In December 1944, as the Red Army closed in on Budapest, five Jewish men in a Nazi Labor Camp hatched a plan to escape. They’d been developing the plan for a number of days, softening the grass which would be their landing spot, paying close attention to the patterns of the guards. The commanders were closing up the camp and moving the prisoners onto trains, onto Germany and almost certainly onto death.

In a fortunate twist of fate, the work crew Kapo (a prisoner given special status to carry out the orders of the SS and lead work crews) had been a serving soldier under one of the inmates during the First World War. The men made their attempt and aided by their man on the inside, their daring break was successful. The man who had forged the link with one of this former charges and enabled the entire operation would return to Italy following the war and continue his work in building one of the greatest teams Europe has ever seen. Had the European Cup happened earlier, or if tragedy were not to befall them, it’s possible that Ernő Egri Erbstein and his Il Grande Torino would have been a European Champion. Tragically, Erbstein, his captain and star player Valentino Mazzola, English coach Leslie Lievesley and the rest of the talented team would perish in the Superga air crash in 1949. They were travelling back from a friendly match in Lisbon. A little over sixteen years later, one of his accomplices in the break for freedom, would lead their opposition on that fateful day to the peak of European football. That man was Bela Guttmann. That club was Benfica.

Guttmann was no stranger to the competition. As noted earlier, he took the reins of Honved in 1957 for their two games against Athletic Bilbao. He also was denied the chance to coach Milan in their run to the final in ‘58 following his sacking in spring 1957 and gave up the chance to coach Porto in the 1959/60 season when he took the Benfica job after leading the Dragons to the Portuguese title in 1959.

Jumping from job to job was a trademark of his career. He would manage twenty two clubs, including two spells at Benfica and Porto, over a forty-year coaching career. He would coach in twelve different countries and two continents and as a player he spent six years of his career in New York, opening up a speakeasy during prohibition-era Manhattan (it would go bust). In short, he led a remarkable and heroic life.

Born in Budapest in 1899, then part of Austria-Hungary, Guttmann’s parents, like many Jews, had moved to Budapest in the late nineteenth century. The city had a thriving Jewish community, with over 170,000 making the city their home, second only to Warsaw in Europe. Guttmann did not come from a wealthy background but he showed a talent for football and joined the famous MTK Budapest team who would later appear in the European Cup as Voros Lobogo. Guttmann won two league championships before the repressive regime of Miklós Horthy saw him leave for Vienna. There he joined the famous Jewish club Hakoah Wien, winning the Austrian league in 1925. Hakoah embarked on a tour to the USA in 1926, which saw them marketed as the ‘unbeatable Jews’ and draw a crowd of 46,000 in an exhibition game (a US attendance record until 1977). He represented Hungary six times, but his International career came to an abrupt halt after he showed his annoyance at the number of officials in the travelling party on an away trip, by hanging dead rats on their doors.

His coaching pathway began with Hakoah but by the outbreak of war in 1939 he was back in Hungary with Újpest FC following a brief return to the US. Guttmann guided them to the Hungarian league and the Mitropa Cup in 1939 but left Újpest two days after the final because of a dispute over a pay rise, a common theme in his career. Hungary would later join the Axis powers, but had already aligned itself to Germany and had passed laws prohibiting Jews from major roles in public life. In his biography of Guttmann, David Bolchover, suggests that it was likely that Újpest’s Jewish owner Lipót Aschner, was pressurised to remove his fellow Jew from such a prominent coaching position and indeed, Aschner would bring Guttmann back to the club as a ‘secret advisor’ in around 1943. Aschner, a major industrialist in the city, would be removed from his home and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1944. He would survive the war and die in 1952 but the man who moved into his villa, Adolf Eichmann, would mastermind the death of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Guttmann never revealed much about how he survived during the war years, stating that ‘God helped me’ but research from Bolchover shows he spent months hiding out in the attic of the hair salon of his wife-to-be Mariann’s brother. At the time Jews living in Újpest were gathered up and deported to German concentration camps. There was what seemed a way out of avoiding that awful fate, and this is how Guttmann ended up in the Labour Camp. As Bolchover wrote:

‘In June 1944, concerned about the shortage of manpower available to perform war-related tasks, Hungarian Minister of Defence Lajos Csatay issued instructions for every Jewish male between the ages of eighteen and forty-eight to report to a labour camp. For the next four months, this labour service offered a reasonable route to survival.’^

Guttmann and Erbstein’s escape came about after the Hungarian government signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. This prompted the Nazi’s to depose the existing government and replace them with the far-right Arrow Cross party who quickly began deporting those in the Labour Camps, to Germany. Following his escape, Guttmann was again sheltered by Mariann’s family, whereby he saw the war out.

As a coach he was described as ‘a restless wanderer without peace who’s at home nowhere and jumps from one challenge to another.’^ The major milestones in his career to that point were a return to Újpest in 1947 where he won the league before taking charge of Kispest FC where he fell out with star player Ferenc Puskás over a substitution during a game. Guttmann had succeeded Puskás father as the coach so it’s possible there was some animosity between the two. Their feud was smoothed over by 1957 when Guttmann was asked to take the team for the Athletic Bilbao tie and then on to their South American tour. In between that time, Guttmann had made a name for himself in Italy, taking charge of Padova, Triestina and following his departure from Milan, Vicenza. His sacking from Milan was discussed earlier in the book but it’s worth noting that his replacement Ettore Puricelli was hired by Porto to take over from Guttmann. His team were eliminated 4-1 on aggregate in the 59/60 season by Cervena Hviezda Bratislava, now known as Inter Bratislava and Puricelli was fired after only nine games in charge.

Following the Honved tour of South America, Guttmann elected to stay in Brazil, becoming coach of Sao Paulo and leading them to the Campeonato Paulista, the Sao Paulo state title. He had replaced Vincente Feola as the coach, but Feola stayed on as his assistant and in 1958 he would be appointed Brazil manager and lead them to their first World Cup. Guttmann claimed it was he who had brought the 4-2-4 formation Feola employed to Brazil. In Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson lists a number of coaches who have made similar claims or been given credit for its origins in South America, including Manual Fleitas Solich, so whilst Guttmann may not be solely responsible for this, undoubtedly he influenced Feola’s thinking and approach with the Seleção.

Whilst the Guttmann story is a remarkable tale of fortitude against the odds, there was a dark shadow over his time in Italy. In 1955, Guttmann, who did not posses a driving license, struck two students who stood by their scooters as his car veered off the road. One victim, Giuliano Brene, aged 17 was killed instantly whilst his friend Graziella Brianzoli spent a month in hospital following the crash. The owner of the car, and other passenger, was Desző Solti, who would later gain fame for his role in match-fixing for Inter and Juventus. The two Hungarians, fled the scene but Solti later confessed to the crime. Eye witnesses however, placed Guttmann at the scene and he was charged with manslaughter, but the case would not reach court until 1957. At that time, Solti changed his plea and admitted Guttmann was driving. Italian justice was not the swiftest and in 1960 Solti was absolved of all charges, and Guttmann sentenced to six months in prison. He was immediately pardoned by paying four million lire in damages to the victims.

Benfica’s transfer policy only allowed them to sign players from Portugal or its colonies. This put them at a disadvantage against Porto and Sporting but when Guttmann took over he was fortunate to inherit a strong foundation built by future Portuguese national coach, Otto Gloria who managed the team from 1954 to 1959. Gloria, who would return to Benfica later in the decade, had established a house for single players and filled it with talented youth players from throughout the country and also developed a pipeline from the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique.

At the time Portugal, concerned about rising nationalist tides and the breaking of colonial empires across the globe, was making a greater effort to emphasise the unity of its empire and began relaxing travel restrictions between the colonies and the mainland. As Todd Cleveland writes:

‘Irrespective of the specific motivations for Portugal’s shift in policy, African players were newly able to pursue remunerative opportunities that would have previously been unimaginable due to the institutionalized racism that characterized Portugal’s colonial project. This shifting attitude towards African labor was manifested in the high levels of responsibility that these individuals assumed for both club and national teams.’^

Benfica’s awareness of the talent on African players came after a tour of Angola in 1950. In a game against a local side the opposing striker, José Águas, son of a white colonial family and at the time a professional hunter, scored twice against them in a subsequent defeat. Benfica would ask him to play for them for the rest of the tour, signing him at the end. Águas, would go on to make 281 appearances for Benfica, captain the club and score 290 goals including two in European Cup finals.

Águas would be succeeded as Captain by Mario Coluna who joined in 1954 from Benfica’s Angolan feeder club, Desportivo, based in the capital Lourenço Marques (now Maputo). Coluna was a gifted athlete, becoming National High Jump champion as a 17-year old and played as an inside forward or in centre midfield. He was noted for his stamina, awareness and long-range shooting with his left foot.

Coluna and Águas would be supplemented by two additional African-born players. The goalkeeper Costa Pereira, born in Mozambique, to white Portuguese parents, and Santana, a native of Angola, who played at inside right. Pereira would even play for the Benfica Basketball team, during the mid 50s as Otto Gloria doubled up as the manager of both teams. The Benfica teams that started the ‘61, ‘62 and ‘63 finals would contain four African players. This was not equalled until 2012 and the Chelsea starting eleven that featured Didier Drogba, Solomon Kalou (both Ivory Coast), John Obi Mikel (Nigeria) and José Bosingwa (Portugal international but born in Zaire).

Whilst Guttmann would famously claim he sacked 20 players upon his arrival at the club, this was largely due to his desire to work with a smaller, more cohesive squad, than a major disregard for the quality of the existing players. Six of the eventual starting team for the ‘61 final had been given their debuts by Gloria (Coluna, Santana, Neto, Cavem, Costa Pereira and Mário João), whilst Águas and Ângelo Martins enjoyed some of their best years under the Brazillian. It is testament to the work of Guttmann that he only needed to make minor additions to make the team European Champions. Fernando Cruz was promoted from the youth team and two signings were made from Portuguese clubs. José Augusto joined from Barreirense and was converted into a right winger. Possessing speed, footwork and a powerful shot, Augusto would be considered by many as the best outside-right in Europe within a couple of years. At the back, Germano Figuerido was picked up for the bargain price of £2000. Losing his hair and possessing a Super Mario moustache, Germano was 27 when he joined the Eagles but proved an inspired signing. Dominant at the back, assured on the ball, he was capable of launching counter attacks quickly through passing or dribbling.

Guttmann had been snatched from Porto by Benfica’s President Maurício Vieira de Brito, part of a family that had raised a fortune with coffee in Angola. He had nearly doubled his salary when joining the club to 400,000 escudos, around £18,000, equivalent to around £400,000 in today’s money. In his first meeting, he asked de Brito for a bonus of 200,000 escudos if he was to win the European Cup. ‘Make it 300,000, my friend,’^ replied de Brito, who, like most of Europe thought that the European Cup was the sole preserve of Real Madrid. It was to prove an expensive, but enjoyable, mistake.

Tactically, he would shift from the 4-2-4 favoured by Otto Gloria to the W-M formation, noting modestly:

‘I invented 4-2-4, and I know it is not suitable for us…our great strength is in attack and we must use a system which envisages five forwards. I don’t mind if our opponents score four goals, so long as we get five.’^

It was an exciting and effective approach. In the 1959/60 season, Benfica would go 25 games unbeaten, losing only to Belenenses on the final day of the domestic season when the title was already secured. Their European Cup campaign began at Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh. Five years after their city rivals Hibernian had been invited to take part in the inaugural tournament, Heart of Midlothian, their name taken from the title of a Sir Walter Scott novel, attempted to write their own chapter within Europe’s leading football competition. Unfortunately for the Scots, there would be no happy ending, with Benfica assuredly winning 2-1 in the Scottish capital and 3-0 in in Lisbon. Gordon Smith who had represented Hibernian in 55, had crossed the city divide and recalled that Hearts ‘were absolutely outclassed by Benfica in both matches. They were streets ahead of us in style, technique and set play.’^ Smith would appear again in the competition, becoming the first man to play for three different sides in the competition when he lined up for Dundee in 1963. Hearts would never win the Scottish title again but reached the second round of the Champions League in 2006/7 season when a second place spot in the Scottish Premiership merited a qualification spot.

Benfica were now in the first round proper and Guttmann was drawn to face his countrymen and former club, Újpesti Dózsa but was advised not to travel to the second leg in Hungary, due to the risk that the Communist government would not let him leave were he to return to the country. He had little need to worry that his team would need him. After 30 minutes, a goal from Coluna and braces for Águas and Santana had put Benfica 5-0 up. Augusto would add another, and despite conceding two late goals the tie was over. Guttmann would listen to the second leg on the radio in his beloved Vienna, and it’s unlikely even the 2-1 defeat would have been enough to wipe the grin off his face.

Five months later, he would be back in his adopted home for the semi-finals to face Rapid after Danish Champions Aarhus were swept aside in the Quarter-Finals. Rapid were making their first appearance since the 57/58 season and had knocked out Besiktas, the East Germans Wismut Karl Marx Stadt (over three games) and Swedish Champions Malmo in the quarters.

The Austrians, like the rest of Benfica’s opponents were overawed at the sprawling Estadio Da Luz. Named after the region of the city it is located in, the Stadium of Light had been expanded in 1960 and 65,000 fans created a cauldron for visiting teams. In the first leg, Águas, who would end up as top scorer, scored alongside Coluna and Domiciano Cavém in a 3-0 win. Benfica would remain unbeaten at home in Europe for the next six years. Águas gave Benfica a second half lead in Vienna, and though Rapid equalized, the game was marred by a riot which occurred in the final moments. After the home side were denied a probable penalty by referee Reg Leafe (him again) Benfica players were attacked by Viennese players and fans. Along with Leafe, they were escorted by police to the dressing rooms, where they had to wait several hours before leaving. For their behaviour, Rapid’s fans were banned from the Prater stadium for three seasons.

Elsewhere in the competition, Juventus would continue their poor form, knocked in the preliminary round by CDNA Sofia. Ajax, too, would not make the first round proper as they couldn’t turn around a 4-3 first leg defeat to the Norwegian Champions Fredrikstad. For the Dutchmen, coached by Englishman, Vic Buckingham, despite the exit, the roots of their future success were taking shape, with youngster Sjaak Swart getting on the scoresheet. Dutch football was still to bear the fruits of the professional-era, but by the time Ajax had their next Eredivisie title in 1965, Swart would be surrounded by a host of young talents.

For Juventus, there was no excuse. Yet again they had been defeated by, albeit tricky, inferior opposition. After a comfortable 2-0 win in Turin, they imploded in Bulgaria, going 4-0 down before grabbing a late consolation. They would win one European trophy that season, Omar Sivori picking up the Balon D’Or, but it was scant consolation for the naturalised Argentine, who along with Giampiero Boniperti and John Charles, made up the famed La Trio Magica.

English representation was provided in the unlikely guise of Burnley Football Club who lifted their second ever League title. The Lancashire club became the smallest town to have an English top-flight champion after they pipped Wolves and Spurs to the Division 1 crown. The Clarets only reached the summit during their last game, a rescheduled match against Manchester City, held on a Monday night. Led by their dynamic duo of Jimmy’s: Adamson and Mcilroy, and coached by Alan Potts, they were known for their attacking football and perhaps more suited to the European game than Culis’s Wolves. In the first round they drew Reims and the Kopa-Fontaine partnership that had been so effective in the ‘58 World Cup. Fortunately for the Clarets, they avoided facing both in the same team as Fontaine missed the first game through injury and Kopa the return. A 2-0 win in England provided the insurance required and despite the 3-2 scoreline in France, Burnley were never in any real danger of elimination.

In the Quarter-Finals they played out a fantastic tie against Hamburg. Burnley had been 3-0 up in the home leg but a late goal from Gert Dörfel gave the Germans hope for the return leg. Dealing with a hectic fixture list, as they had reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and League Cup (Hardaker’s baby in its first season), Burnley played five games in 14 days by the time of the second-leg. The lethargy showed and Hamburg had erased the two goal deficit by half-time. Gordon Harris responded with a crucial goal for Burnley on 55 minutes. A rising strike into the top corner to put them back in front on aggregate, but their advantage did not last long. A minute, to be precise. Dorfel struck again with the outside of his left foot to level the tie and it was left to Hamburg’s star forward, Uwe Seeler, to win the game and set up a semi-final with Barca. Seeler who had also scored a magnificent diving header in the first half, raced on to a through pass and as Adam Blacklaw in the Burnley goal advanced, he squeezed the ball past him and in off the post. Jimmy McIlroy, had a keen eye on the failings of his team when he said: ‘We attacked too much in the second leg, instead of concentrating on holding the Germans for a period. They took advantage of the gaps we left.’^ Wise words, and many British sides would be left to spin similar tales in later years.

It would take three games to determine the winner between Hamburg and Barca. The Catalans took a 1-0 lead to Germany but found themselves two down thanks to a driven free-kick from Peter Wulf and a strikers goal from Seeler. With 90 minutes on the clock, a cross from deep was met by Sandor Kocsis, ‘Cabeza de Oro’(the Golden Head), and true to form he slammed the ball home to send the game to a deciding third game in Brussels. In another tight match, Evaristo struck again to send Barcelona to the final and ensure the Spanish presence was maintained in the final for the sixth straight year.

The Stadion Wankdorf in Berne was the setting in which the first team other than Real Madrid would become Champions of Europe. Seven years earlier on the same turf, one of the greatest shocks in World Cup history took place as the Hungary gave up a 2-0 lead and fell to West Germany 3-2, in the ‘Miracle of Berne’. On the field that day were Czibor and Kocsis, the former scoring the second goal and on their return, both changed in the corridor to avoid setting foot in the same dressing room. Like Hungary, although perhaps not to quite the same extent, Barcelona were favourites. ‘I was afraid of their forward line’^ said Guttmann and well, he might be given his familiarity with them. He coached Kocsis and Czibor at Honved, had faced Kubala and Evaristo when they were both in Hungary and Brazil respectively, and then there was Suarez, the European Footballer of the year. His team talk thus was simple: ‘Let’s go out on that pitch and fight, fight, fight.’^ His players would be boosted by many Portuguese exiles in the crowd of 26,000, the lowest ever for a European Cup Final, 100,000 less than the year previous.

It was Kocsis again, who put the Catalans in front after 20 minutes. Suarez cut back cross evaded Evaristo but the Golden Head was at the back post and rose to nod the ball home. But the game would turn in two mad minutes on the half hour. First Águas scored his eleventh of the tournament, sliding home after Cavem had run onto a fine through ball from Coluna. Antonio Ramallets had come rushing out of his goal but did not adjust for Cavem’s pace, and the winger was able to get to the ball first and pass the ball across the face of the goal for Águas to tap in. Worst was to follow for Ramallets a minute later. An innocuous ball into the box saw Gensana mistime his header and as the ball came down below the crossbar, Rammalets lost it in the sun, palming the ball off the post and into the net. Then 10 minutes after half-time Coluna, made it 3-1, with a trademark volley from outside the box.

In Barcelona, the final is known as the Final of the Cursed Posts. ‘I went out on to the pitch before the game and the posts hadn’t been put up yet. And when they were, they were square’ recalled Antonio Ramallets.^ Square posts were most common in Scotland and would cause controversy in the 1976 final too, but the ones in use at the Wankdorf were especially bulky. Yet, their increased size and unique shape had no bearing on Kocsis missing from a yard out after a mix up in the Benfica defence. They may have helped push Kubala’s long range effort, which struck both before rolling agonisingly across the line.

Following these misses, Czibor scored a magnificent goal. Smashing a bouncing ball on the half-volley into the top corner with shades of Zidane in 2002, minus the hanging cross. Alas, just like in ‘54 his goal was in vain and Benfica held on for the victory, and he and Kocsis, left the field in tears, haunted by their failure seven years earlier. For Guttmann it marked, as David Bolchover entitled his biography, The Greatest Comeback, from escaping the Nazis and the Holocaust to European Champion within 15 years. And he wasn’t done there.

For Barcelona, denied the chance to emulate their rivals, they would not win La Liga until 1974, only appearing in the European Cup, twice in the next thirty years. The famous frontline that kept Guttmann up at night would be no more following the final, with the team broken as the club found themselves in financial crisis. The great Suarez would become the most expensive player in the World, joining Herrera for 250 Million Lire, (£142,000), and he would have his redemption in the competition in future years. Kubala would play his final game for Barca three months later, retiring for two years to focus on coaching before making a comeback in 1963, to sign for Espanyol whereby he would team up with Di Stéfano. Czibor would also make a cross city journey, but would only make 12 appearances and though the remainder career would see him make a series of stops throughout the World his great career effectively ended that day. Evaristo made a worse trip, to Real Madrid, although his best years were behind him.

Finally there was Kocsis. He would remain in Barcelona, retiring in 1965 and opened a restaurant in the city named ‘The Golden Head’ but tragedy would haunt his life. He had a foot amputated when he failed to seek medical attention after a cupboard fell on it and was then diagnosed with cancer which lead to bouts of depression and alcoholism. He would die in 1979, age 49, after he fell out of a window in a Barcelona hospital, almost certainly on his own violation. In the words of Puskás ‘(h)e was in great pain, I believe, and when someone left a window open near to his bed, despite hardly being able to move, he managed to throw himself out of the window and finish it. Who can blame him?’^