Eusébio

Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was a striker built on pace, technique, raw athleticism and a ferocious right foot, and at Benfica he scored at a rate that still looks unreal. Born in 1942 in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, in Mozambique, he learned the game barefoot, kicking balls made from stuffed socks. He went by the nicknames the Black Panther, the Black Pearl or simply o Rei, the King. Benfica found him through José Carlos Bauer, a Brazilian former player who tipped off coach Béla Guttmann, and the signing turned into a tug-of-war with Sporting CP. The impact was instant. At a Paris tournament in June 1961, Benfica trailed Pelé's Santos 0–4 when Guttmann sent him on, and he scored three times inside twenty minutes; Santos still won, but Eusébio made the cover of L'Équipe. The next season he scored twice in the European Cup final as Benfica beat Real Madrid 5–3. His game was more than raw power. He preferred his right foot but could use his left just as comfortably, and at times his dribbling caught defenders out, almost as if he liked to keep it hidden until he needed it. The goals came in floods: seven times the league's top scorer, the first European Golden Boot in 1968 and another in 1973, and 473 goals in 440 competitive games for the club. The 1965 Ballon d'Or was his too. From the spot he was cold and dependable, missing only five penalties in his entire career. The 1966 World Cup showed the whole package. Against Brazil he scored a celebrated volley from an acute angle off a corner. In the quarter-final North Korea led 3–0 inside 25 minutes, and he replied with four goals in a row, the last a penalty after a sprint from the middle of his own half ended with two defenders taking him down; Portugal won 5–3. Nobby Stiles marked him closely throughout the semi-final, yet he still beat Gordon Banks from the spot before walking off in tears after a 2–1 defeat to England. In the third-place match Lev Yashin guessed the right way on his penalty and still could not stop it. Nine goals brought him the Golden Boot. He was generous with opponents too. When Alex Stepney saved his late shot in the 1968 European Cup final at 1–1, he stopped to applaud the Manchester United goalkeeper, and he saluted Banks and Yashin after scoring against them. His knees were the real limit: seven operations, six on the left knee, the first before he turned 20, though he tended to return quickly. After his death in 2014, Alfredo Di Stéfano said: "For me Eusébio will always be the best player of all time".