Why they rank here
The deadliest left foot the game has known, and the star of its greatest lost team. Puskás scored 84 goals in 85 internationals for Hungary — a strike rate no modern player approaches — captaining the Aranycsapat through an Olympic gold in 1952, the 6-3 and 7-1 destructions of England in 1953-54, and a four-year unbeaten run that ended only in the 1954 World Cup final, where an injured Puskás scored and had a late equalizer disallowed in the 3-2 loss to West Germany. After the 1956 uprising he left Hungary, was banned for two years, and joined Real Madrid at 31 — supposedly overweight and finished. He then won four Pichichi trophies, scored 156 league goals in 180 games, struck four in the 1960 European Cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt (still the record for a final) and a hat-trick in the 1962 final in defeat. Career total: 700+ goals across two lives, either of which would justify this ranking. FIFA's award for the year's best goal fittingly bears his name.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.