Here is an Obit
Hungary's 'Little Brother' led soccer team to gold
Among Puskas's many achievements was his record of scoring 83 goals in 84 games, which stood until 2003.
Reuters Published: Monday, November 20, 2006
Hungarian soccer great Ferenc Puskas, the best player of his generation and talismanic member of the nation's "Golden Team" of the 1950s, died in hospital on Friday, aged 79, after a long illness.
Puskas was known as "Little Brother" in Hungary, "The Galloping Major" in England and the "Booming Cannon" by Real Madrid fans.
"The exact cause of death was cardiovascular and respiratory failure triggered by pneumonia," his biographer Gyorgy Szollosi said.
His funeral will be held on Dec. 9, the international committee organizing the ceremony said in a statement.
Puskas's family appealed, in a statement, for dignified mourning and Hungary's parliament held a one-minute moment of silence on Friday.
"The best-known Hungarian of the 20th century is gone," Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said in a statement.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter hailed Puskas as the greatest Hungarian player of the past 50 years. In a letter of condolence to the Hungarian Football Federation, Blatter said the forward was "one of the greatest players that I have seen in my life".
Puskas, whose international scoring record of 83 goals in 84 games stood until 2003, won Olympic gold with Hungary in 1952, league titles with his Hungarian club Honved and with Real Madrid, with whom he also won three European Cups.
"This is a real tragedy for Hungary and specifically for us, his friends. I am on the verge of tears ... the biggest sportsman of the country is no longer," national news agency MTI quoted former international team mate Jeno Buzanszky as saying.
Puskas was the inspiration behind the "Magical Magyars," the Hungarian national side that sensationally beat England 6-3 in 1953, the first foreign team to win at London's Wembley Stadium.
"My memories are that I have never seen the likes of [such] a team or an individual," former England striker Tom Finney, who was injured for that game, told BBC Radio Five Live.
As the last millennium drew to a close, Puskas was voted the 20th century's fourth best player by the International Federation for Football History and Statistics.
Born in April, 1927, Puskas began his career in the domestic league aged 15 and won his first international cap three years later, scoring on his debut against Austria.
He was a key member of Hungary's 1950s team that lost just one match -- the 1954 World Cup final -- in six years.
The team was devastated by Hungary's anti-communist uprising in 1956, after which Puskas went into exile.
In 1958, he resurrected his career at Real Madrid where he formed a lethal strike partnership with Argentine-born Alfredo Di Stefano, winning six domestic titles and conquering Europe.
Puskas scored four and Di Stefano three in Real's mesmerizing 7-3 European Cup win over Eintracht Frankfurt in Glasgow, in 1960 -- a match that has passed into soccer folklore.
Despite all the goals and fame, a former next-door neighbour from Madrid remembers Puskas as a down-to-earth man.
"Although he was a famous footballer he seemed very normal compared to today's modern stars," Jacobo Olalla Maranon told Reuters.