Today I am bringing you guys a bit of history about the football legend:
Eusébio “The Black Panther” a.k.a. “King” a.k.a “Black Pearl”.
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was born on 25th January 1942 in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique (former Portuguese colony) and died on 5th January 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Early beginnings
The “Black Panther” came from an humble family and lived in poor neighborhood before pack and move to the Portuguese capital.
His early career started at the local team called Sporting Lourenço Marques, which is an subsidiary team of Sporting Lisbon.
At the age 18, the young Eusébio moves to Portugal to join Sporting Lisbon. Upon the arrival in Lisbon's airport, the rivals Benfica approach him and somehow successfully hired Eusébio.
Note: Till these days some people says this story in the airport is a myth.
S.L.Benfica (1961-1975)
He was the main man in Benfica being 11 times national champion, Portuguese league top scorer for seven times, 5 times Portuguese cup winner and also leading the Portuguese side to 4 European Cup (now UEFA Champions League) Finals, winning only 1 time against 5 times champion Real Madrid in 1962
That same year Juventus made an offer for Benfica's “Black Pearl” the transfer did not happen due the high price asked from the Benfica's chairman. According with a popular belief the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar wouldn't let that transfer to happen, apparently Salazar's words were: “Eusébio is portuguese heritage”.
4 years after Inter Milan had all the transfer details set to hire Benfica's superstar but Italy's national team poor performance and early knockout from 1966 World Cup group stage, made the Italian League to close the borders for foreigners players, miscarrying Inter Milan's plans for Eusébio.
The 1960's was period of incredible players like Franz Beckenbauer, Pelé, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Bobby Charlton and Ferenc Puskás! Eusébio literary was standing among them, winning 1965 the Ballon D'or and 3 times golden boot winner (1965,1966,1968) for being the top scorer in the European Cup (now UEFA Champions League).
National Team (1961-1973)
Regarding the Portuguese national team their best achievement was during the 1966 World Cup which was held in England.
On the group stage Portugal faced Hungary, Bulgaria and Pelé's Brazil (previous two times world champion).
The Portuguese won the 3 games and were facing North Korea in the Quarter-Finals. At the half-time the North Koreans were winning by 3-0. On the second half an inspired Eusébio scored 4 goals making one of the best memorable comebacks in football history. The final score was 5-3 and Portugal went to the Semi-Final to face the hosts: England.
On the eve before the match, Portuguese team was forced to move from Liverpool to London to play at Wembley. This situation has some controversy, since the established rules said should be the English national team to move to Liverpool.
Unfortunately “Black Panther” could not prevent the defeat of his team and the “Three Lions” won against the “Lusos” for 2-1 and Portugal's finished on 3rd place, thereafter the English were world champions for the first time.
1966 World Cup is considered Eusébio's finest performances, making him tournament top scorer with 9 goals bringing a well deserved reputation for the Portuguese national team and himself.
Late career
In 1975 Eusébio played his last match for Benfica and proposal arrived from U.S.A to represent Boston Minutemen which the “King” accepted, embracing a new experience and helping to promote the “Soccer” on the other side of the Atlantic.
Pelé and Eusébio faced once again now on U.S. soil, they had past their golden era but still caused enormous frenzy amid the fans, overloading a 14,000 stadium capacity to an outstanding 20,000 people!
During that period in North America, he would play for another 8 teams, including one from Canada and Mexico and two from Portugal (He went to play in Portugal while the American league had holidays).
During his career Eusébio had 6 surgeries, 5 specially to his left knee. A interesting fact is in 1970 a orthopaedist in a conference used Eusebio's X-rays saying with was a 60 years old man knees.
Now we can understand how bad knees this man had.
Eusébio retired in 1979 due to bad knees. He played a total of 745 games and scoring 733 goals (including national team).
Homage
A bronze statue of Eusébio stands in the surrounding of Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, Portugal and a statue replica at the Gillette Stadium, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA.
Comments