![]() The coming years saw the rise of TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, as he became owner of AC Milan and then Prime Minister of Italy, naming his political party 'Forza Italia' after a football chant. In that first week in Italy, Michel Platini and Juventus won the Intercontinental Cup, whilst just days later the PLO killed 13 people in a random shooting at Rome's Fiumicino airport. It soon became clear that neither Italy nor Italian football would be boring. When journalist Paddy Agnew and his girlfriend Dympna touched down in Rome in 1985 in search of adventure, sunshine and the soul of Italian football (well, Paddy was looking for that), they were travelling into the uncharted terrain of a country they did not know and a language they did not speak. Jonathan Wilson is the finest sports writer of his generation.” - Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads “Beautifully written and immaculately researched. How did the history of modern football come to be born in the Budapest coffeehouses of the early twentieth century?įifteen years in the making, this new book from bestselling football historian Jonathan Wilson is the missing piece of the jigsaw the forgotten story in football's history, lost in war, in revolution, in death and tragedy. ![]() ![]() Only, how come the ideas from this team spread around the world? Why do Hungarian managers spring up in Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, across Europe and the Americas, bringing their secrets with them? And what are the incredible stories they have to tell, of escaping the Nazis and the Soviet communists? This is the beginning, middle and end of Hungarian football in the popular imagination. ![]() A year later, they lost agonisingly in the final of a World Cup that they dominated. A year earlier, this Hungarian team had won Olympic gold. In 1953, the Mighty Magyars beat England 6-3 at Wembley, a result that echoes through the history of football.
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