Sándor Mátrai

Sándor Mátrai , also Sándor Magna (born November 20, 1932 in Nagyszénás , Hungary , † May 29, 2002 in Budapest ), was a Hungarian football player . With the Ferencvárosi TC he won three championship titles and with the national team he took part in three world championships.

Club career

Mátrai was initially primarily active in athletics , where he was particularly successful in short distance running and long jump . At the Olympic Games in 1952 he was nominated as a substitute for the Hungarian 4 × 100 m relay, but was not used.

Shortly thereafter, he decided to play football, where from 1953 he played in the first team of the traditional club from the Ferencváros district, then playing under the name Budapesti Kinizsi SE . He started out as a striker under coach Károly Sós for the Green and Whites , but was soon put into defense, where he spent the rest of his career. The club was able to assert itself regularly in the top positions in the championship in the next few years, but the only title in the 1950s was the cup victory in 1958 with a 2-1 win against Salgótarjáni BTC .

In the 1960s, the Franzstadters were able to re-establish themselves at the top of Hungarian football and in 1963 the team around Mátrai, Flórián Albert and Máté Fenyvesi won their first championship title in 14 years. Two more championship titles followed in 1964 and 1967. Mátrai achieved the greatest international success in 1965 in the Messestadtecup , where Ferencváros only prevailed in replays against the Wiener Sport-Club , Athletic Bilbao and Manchester United and defeated Juventus Turin 1-0 in the final. That year the defender was also named Hungarian Player of the Year.

After the championship title in 1967, Mátrai left his long-term club and played two seasons with first division club VM Egyetértés before ending his active career.

National team

In February 1956, the defender made his debut under Gusztáv Sebes in the Hungarian national team in a 4-1 win over Lebanon . From mid-1957, Mátrai had won a regular place in the selection, which he would hold for almost ten years. His first major international event was the 1958 World Cup , where the Hungarians failed in the group stage in the playoff to Wales .

Four years later he reached the quarter-finals with the Hungarians at the 1962 World Cup , where they lost 1-0 to the eventual finalists Czechoslovakia . In 1964 Mátrai reached the final round of the European Championship with the national team , where the Hungarians were subject to Spain in the semifinals and finally took third place. Matrai's last international tournament was the 1966 World Cup , where he again reached the quarter-finals.

His 81st and last international match was made by Mátrai in September 1967 against the GDR .

successes

• Third place in the European Championship in 1964
• 2 × World Cup quarter-finals: 1962, 1966
• 1 × Trade Fair City Cup: 1965
• 3 × Hungarian champions: 1963, 1964, 1967
• 1 × Hungarian Cup winner: 1958
• 81 games for the Hungarian national football team

Web links

• Sándor Mátrai in the database of weltfussball.de
• List of Hungarian national players.