Eusebio may have hung up his football boots half a
life ago at the age of 35 but not even Cristiano Ronaldo has dethroned him as the greatest Portuguese footballer.
Eusebio da Silva Ferreira turns 70 on Wednesday and will quietly celebrate the day with his family.
He is still recovering from pneumonia which saw him hospitalised for 12 days over Christmas.
Released from the clinic on New Year’s Eve, the Benfica Lisbon legend and 1966 World Cup top-scorer Eusebio names good health top of his wishlist for 2012 “in order to support Portugal on site at Euro
2012.”
Ronaldo will try to make another impression at the June tournament in Poland and Ukraine but even a title may not be good enough to usurp the living legend Eusebio.
“He was like a person from another planet, an extra-terrestrial,” respected Portuguese journalist Pedro Vasco once wrote.
The record sports daily named him “a myth” on the weekend, saying Eusebio can still instil “pride and joy” and that neither Ronaldo nor Luis Figo have reached his status.
“If you put together Figo and Ronaldo then you get Eusebio,” Vasco says.
Physical strength, speed and precision were the trademarks of Eusebio, who was born January 25, 1942 in Lourenco Marques, now the capital of Mozambique, Maputo.
Eusebio was discovered by a Benfica talent scout while playing for Sporting Lourenco, then linked to their Lisbon arch-rivals Sporting, and was secretly flown to Lisbon to sign with Benfica as an 18-year-old in 1960.
Eusebio enjoyed such huge success during
his 15 years at Benfica that a bronze statue of him has been erected in front of their home stadium, the Estadio de Luz.
Eusebio scored 338 goals in 314 Benfica games, two of them in the 5-3 victory over Real Madrid in the 1962 Champions Cup final. Eleven national titles and five cups added to the trophies.
The Champions Cup final also saw his breakthrough on the international stage, where Eusebio peaked at Portugal’s World Cup debut in 1966 in England by leading them to third place.
Eusebio scored nine goals, four of them in the remarkable 5-3 quarter-final win from 3-0 down against North Korea after eliminating then two-times reigning champions Brazil in the group stage.
Eusebio, who retired from the national team in 1973 after scoring 41 goals in 64 caps, still believes that the 2-1 semi-final defeat against later champions England was fixed and he left the pitch in tears.
However, he wasn’t able to cash in on his success which also includes Golden Boot honours as best European league scorer in 1970 and 1973, and the European Footballer of the Year award in 1965.
Portugal’s dictator Antonio Salazar did not allow him to accept rich offers from Italian clubs so Eusebio only spent the last years of his career outside the country at North American clubs after the regime was toppled.
He later had various roles from assistant coach to advisor for Benfica and said his lasting popularity more than makes up for any missed income.
“The joy I feel when children embrace me in Portugal and Africa is priceless,” says Eusebio.
