An Iconographic Analysis of Photographs of Two Famous Football Players: Additional Information about the Career of Puskás and Deák

The lifestyle reform movements at the turn of the century played a remarkably important role in the growing priority attributed to physical education. Sports clubs could be considered the most influential nongovernmental organizations at the beginning of the 20th century. Sports were given special priority and were even supported by legal measures in Hungary between the two world wars. Playing football gained vast popularity. We focus on two famous football players, Puskás, “the most famous Hungarian” and Deák, a Guinness record-holding top goal scorer. To be precise, we focus on their photos: we have similar ones of a young Puskás and a young Deák. These photos depict a very important moment in the lives of both youngsters. We conduct an iconographic analysis in order to illustrate connections the two young football players have to their clubs and to the sport.