Italian club AC Milan will be the third foreign club at this year's edition, taking their place alongside the clubs most strongly associated with Puskás, 2008 winners Real Madrid and Greek team Panathinaikos, which this year will be held earlier at Easter time due to the FIFA World Cup in June. This now means that "history's most successful football club", 9-time European Champion Real Madrid and second most successful team AC Milan will come to Felcsút and Székesfehérvár.
Among the Hungarian teams participating in the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP between Good Friday and Easter Monday will be ever-present participant Budapest Honvéd, Puskás' former Hungarian team) as well as current cup holders Ferencváros, the club with which Puskás played on-loan in 1947, and of course our host U17 team Videoton-Puskás Akadémia.
It is thanks to the collaboration of our Academy's founder Viktor Orbán and Silvio Berlusconi, Milan
President and Italian Prime Minister, that AC Milan accepted the invitation to participate and compete for the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP. Last year at the European Champions League Final in Rome the two politicians agreed on an invitation for AC Milan and this week participation was officially confirmed by the club's youth department. The club becomes the fourth foreign team in the cup's history (the third, Slovan Bratislava, participated in last year's edition alongside Real and Pana) to visit Felcsút and play in the deciding matches at the Sóstoi Stadion in Székesfehérvár. It is planned there will be live coverage of the Final this year on SPORT Television.
AC Milan were founded more than one hundred years ago in 1899 and have so far won 15 Italian league titles, five Italian Cups and five Italian Super Cups. In Europe's premier cup competition, the former European Champion Club's Cup, now the UEFA European Champions League, Milan have also performed well. The 'Rossoneri' have won the competition seven times, the second-most amount of times and just two behind Real Madrid, whose Under 17 team will also be in Felcsút in April.
There was space for more Hungarian players and coaches in the history of AC Milan. József Bánás, Kálmán Müller and Árpád Hajós all played in the red and black in season 1925/26, after which Lajos Czeizler coached the world-famous Swedish Gre-No-Li attacking trio of Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm, with a total of 118 goals between them in the 1949/50 season.
In the 1954/55 season the Hungarian master-coach Béla Guttmann also worked at Milan and led the team to the league title. Guttmann had previously been Puskás' coach at Kispest and it is true that one of the world's most successful coaches was forced to leave the club only because of "Öcsi". Later they were reconciled and had a friendly relationship although they came face to face with each other as opponents in the 1962 European Cup Final between Real Madrid and Benfica; Puskás with Real and Guttmann now as coach of the portugese team. Puskás scored a hat-trick for his star-studded team but it wasn't enough as Benfica won 5-3, largely thanks to Guttman's discovery, the young Eusebio.
Budapest Honvéd in fact played in Milan during the time of their tour in the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising. On 8th December 1956 60,000 spectators watched the Hungarian team triumph 2-1, for which Ferenc Puskás naturally scored both goals...
The current AC Milan team occupy third place in the Italian Serie A and face Manchester United in the Champions League to see who will progress to the last eight teams of the competition.
The plan is to organise the 2010 PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP draw to take place on 16th March in the Puskás Pancho Sport Pub in Budapest, at which the publication of FourFourTwo magazine will be introduced to the public.
The tournament's 'day zero' will be the occasion of the traditional visit of participants to pay their respects with wreathes and candles at the tomb of Ferenc Puskás in Saint Stephen's Basilica. In addition, the opening dinner of the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP 2010 will follw later in the same day, the 1st April, which is the exact date of Ferenc Puskás' birthday.
This top-class tournament continues to be kindly supported by its main sponsor for the third consecutive year, Suzuki Hungary Zrt.
Among the Hungarian teams participating in the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP between Good Friday and Easter Monday will be ever-present participant Budapest Honvéd, Puskás' former Hungarian team) as well as current cup holders Ferencváros, the club with which Puskás played on-loan in 1947, and of course our host U17 team Videoton-Puskás Akadémia.
It is thanks to the collaboration of our Academy's founder Viktor Orbán and Silvio Berlusconi, Milan
President and Italian Prime Minister, that AC Milan accepted the invitation to participate and compete for the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP. Last year at the European Champions League Final in Rome the two politicians agreed on an invitation for AC Milan and this week participation was officially confirmed by the club's youth department. The club becomes the fourth foreign team in the cup's history (the third, Slovan Bratislava, participated in last year's edition alongside Real and Pana) to visit Felcsút and play in the deciding matches at the Sóstoi Stadion in Székesfehérvár. It is planned there will be live coverage of the Final this year on SPORT Television.
AC Milan were founded more than one hundred years ago in 1899 and have so far won 15 Italian league titles, five Italian Cups and five Italian Super Cups. In Europe's premier cup competition, the former European Champion Club's Cup, now the UEFA European Champions League, Milan have also performed well. The 'Rossoneri' have won the competition seven times, the second-most amount of times and just two behind Real Madrid, whose Under 17 team will also be in Felcsút in April.
There was space for more Hungarian players and coaches in the history of AC Milan. József Bánás, Kálmán Müller and Árpád Hajós all played in the red and black in season 1925/26, after which Lajos Czeizler coached the world-famous Swedish Gre-No-Li attacking trio of Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm, with a total of 118 goals between them in the 1949/50 season.
In the 1954/55 season the Hungarian master-coach Béla Guttmann also worked at Milan and led the team to the league title. Guttmann had previously been Puskás' coach at Kispest and it is true that one of the world's most successful coaches was forced to leave the club only because of "Öcsi". Later they were reconciled and had a friendly relationship although they came face to face with each other as opponents in the 1962 European Cup Final between Real Madrid and Benfica; Puskás with Real and Guttmann now as coach of the portugese team. Puskás scored a hat-trick for his star-studded team but it wasn't enough as Benfica won 5-3, largely thanks to Guttman's discovery, the young Eusebio.
Budapest Honvéd in fact played in Milan during the time of their tour in the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising. On 8th December 1956 60,000 spectators watched the Hungarian team triumph 2-1, for which Ferenc Puskás naturally scored both goals...
The current AC Milan team occupy third place in the Italian Serie A and face Manchester United in the Champions League to see who will progress to the last eight teams of the competition.
The plan is to organise the 2010 PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP draw to take place on 16th March in the Puskás Pancho Sport Pub in Budapest, at which the publication of FourFourTwo magazine will be introduced to the public.
The tournament's 'day zero' will be the occasion of the traditional visit of participants to pay their respects with wreathes and candles at the tomb of Ferenc Puskás in Saint Stephen's Basilica. In addition, the opening dinner of the PUSKÁS-SUZUKI CUP 2010 will follw later in the same day, the 1st April, which is the exact date of Ferenc Puskás' birthday.
This top-class tournament continues to be kindly supported by its main sponsor for the third consecutive year, Suzuki Hungary Zrt.
