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LISBON, Portugal — Eusebio, the Portuguese soccer star who was born into poverty in Africa but became an international sporting icon and was voted one of the 10 best players of all time, has died at 71, his longtime club Benfica said.
Soccer fans called him the Black Panther, in the manner of the day, because he was from Mozambique, playing for Portugal, but there was little feline about Eusebio. He was big in the beams and solid around the middle even when he was 24 and, for a few magical weeks, the most captivating player of the 1966 World Cup.
He died Sunday, the club announced on its website, without providing details.
He was the center of gravity in that tournament. It was his time. He personally willed Portugal back from a shocking 3-0 deficit to North Korea, the strangers who had already stunned Italy into a tomato barrage back home. Eusebio da Silva Ferreira — known as Eusebio in the Latin soccer single-name fashion — died on Sunday in Lisbon. He would have turned 72 on Jan. 25. His death was announced on the website of his long-time club, Benfica, and confirmed by his biographer, Jose Malheiro, who said he died of heart failure.
Eusebio died at home of heart failure, his biographer, Jose Malheiro, said. “His health was very poor,” Malheiro told reporters. Eusebio was admitted to hospital several times over the last year for the treatment of heart and respiratory problems.
Eusebio carried Portugal to a third-place finish at the World Cup in 1966, after seven failures to qualify. In 1998, a panel of 100 experts gathered by FIFA, the football’s world governing body, named him one of the sport’s top-10 all-time greats.
Officials at Benfica and at the Portuguese Football Federation, where Eusebio was an ambassador, could not immediately be reached.
He was awarded the Ballon d’Or in 1965 as Europe’s player of the year and twice won the Golden Boot — in 1968 and ’73 — for being the top scorer in Europe.
Eusebio’s coffin was to be taken to Benfica’s Stadium of Light later Sunday, public broadcaster Radiotelevisao Portuguesa reported.
His death led Portugal to declare three days of national mourning.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the captain of Portugal who plays for Real Madrid, commented on his Facebook page, “Always eternal Eusebio, rest in peace.” The former captain Luis Figo, the 2001 FIFA world player of the year, tweeted: “The king!! Great loss for us all! The greatest!!”
Measuring only 5 feet, 9 inches, and weighing 160 pounds in his prime, Eusebio somehow seemed much bigger. Perhaps that was because he stood up tall and did not waste motion or energy. He was dignified, in a sport that encourages nasty little shoves and exaggerated stumbles, in search of the slightest advantage.
Eusebio da Silva Ferreira became affectionately known as the Black Panther for his athletic prowess and clinical finishing, which made him one of the world’s top scorers during his heyday in the 1960s for Benfica and the Portuguese national team.
Eusebio played down racial and national politics, praised others, and denied stories about him that could have been turned into legend. , Born in Mozambique on Jan. 25, 1942, to an Angolan father, he belonged to Portugal because those countries were still considered colonies. The rumor grew that he had been kidnapped by Benfica, the great power of Portuguese soccer, until he signed a contract.
Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was to lead Portugal to a third-place finish at the 1966 World Cup, but his agility and speed made him one of Europe’s most dangerous forwards for most of a career that lasted two decades.
“These are all lies, pure and simple!” Eusebio said in a 2008 forum on the website fourfourtwo.com. “Some people aren’t honest, but me and my family are. My mother signed a contract with Benfica for 250 contos (around $1,700) and she insisted on a clause which read: ‘If my son does not adapt, the money is deposited in the bank in Mozambique and not one penny will be taken from it.’ I had return tickets when I arrived.”
He was awarded the Ballon d’Or in 1965 as Europe’s player of the year and twice won the Golden Boot — in 1968 and ’73 — for being the top scorer in Europe. According to football’s world governing body, FIFA, he scored 679 goals in 678 official games.
Eusebio’s legacy is best seen and heard in the documentary, “Goal! The World Cup,” issued in 1967, with commentary by Brian Glanville. In the third match of the first round, a Portuguese player steamrolls the sport’s greatest star, Pelé, already playing with an injury. Eusebio stands by Pelé as the medics attend to him. The rumor was that Eusebio chastised his teammate, but he said, no, he stood by Pelé because “He is my friend.”
None are more famous than those he netted against North Korea in the quarterfinals of the 1966 World Cup. With Portugal trailing by 3-0, Eusebio inspired his team’s turnaround with four goals and an eventual 5-3 victory.
Portugal eliminates Brazil, but then falls behind, 3-0, to North Korea in the first 25 minutes. However, Eusebio scores four goals, and Portugal wins, 5-3.
While Portugal went on to lose to host and eventual champion England in the semifinals, Eusebio became even more popular at home when he wept openly as he left the field after the defeat.
He finished as the tournament’s top scorer with nine goals. In 1998, a panel of 100 experts gathered by FIFA named him in its International Football Hall of Fame as one of the sport’s top 10 all-time greats.
“Look, there are only two black people on the list: me and Pele,” Eusebio commented on the honor, referring to the Brazilian great who was a friend. “I regard that as a great responsibility because I am representing Africa and Portugal, my second homeland.”
Eusebio was born in Maputo, the Mozambican capital, during the World War II when the southeast African country was still a Portuguese colony. He came from a poor family but sparkled for his local team and was lured by Benfica to Portugal when he was 18.
Known for his unpretentious and easy manner as well as his courage and ball skills, his popularity in Portugal was such that in 1964, when Italian clubs offered to buy Eusebio for sums that were astronomical for the time, the country’s then-dictator, Antonio Salazar, decreed that the player was a “national treasure” — meaning that he could not be sold abroad.
“A football genius and example of humility, an outstanding athlete and generous man, Eusebio was for all sports fans and for all Portuguese an example of professionalism, determination and devotion to the colors of the national jersey and of Benfica,” Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said in a statement.
In a playing career unparalleled in Portugal, Eusebio was a cornerstone of the Benfica team that won back-to-back European titles in the early 1960s.
In an epic European Cup final against Real Madrid in 1962, when a first-half hat trick by Ferenc Puskas looked as if it would be enough to secure the trophy for the Spanish club, Eusebio scored the last two goals as the Lisbon team came back to win, 5-3, and clinch Benfica’s second straight continental title.
With Benfica, he won 11 Portuguese league titles and 5 Portuguese Cups, and remains the club’s best-known player. A bronze statue of him, poised to kick a ball, stands outside Benfica’s Stadium of Light, where fans began laying flowers after his death was announced.
But his display in the game against North Korea had already immortalized him to most Portuguese fans.
In that quarterfinal at Goodison Park in Liverpool, Portugal made a nightmare start and was three goals down after 23 minutes.
“We were taken completely by surprise,” Eusebio told The Associated Press at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where the Portuguese had a second meeting with the North Koreans 44 years after the first.
“I remember very clearly what Simoes said when we were 3-0 down,” Eusebio said, referring to his teammate Antonio Simoes. “He kept saying, ‘As long as we don’t go four goals down, we’re still in with a chance. And he was right.”
Eusebio led Portugal’s comeback by repeatedly charging at the Korean defense, scoring four goals in just over 30 minutes.
After his first two goals, he picked the ball out of the net, ran back to the halfway line and placed it in the center spot for the restart. He completed his hat trick with a 56th-minute equalizer before scoring his fourth from the penalty spot as North Korea’s defense fell apart amid the onslaught.
“That was the best game of my life in a Portugal jersey,” Eusebio said. “It left its mark on me.”
“That was the best game of my life in a Portugal jersey,” Eusebio said. “It left its mark on me.”
Eusebio scored 41 goals in 64 games for Portugal.
The semifinal is supposed to be played in Liverpool, where Portugal is ensconced, but is hurriedly shifted to Wembley, outside London, for its great capacity. Playing in its national stadium, England seems truly at home. A wiry defender, Nobby Stiles, with more gall than teeth, marks Eusebio until a late penalty-kick goal in a 2-1 loss for Portugal.
After five knee operations, he played his last game for Benfica in 1975.
The big man pats the cheek of the English keeper, hugs the English defenders, and only when he reaches the edge of the field does he begin to cry. (He scored his ninth goal of the World Cup in the third-place victory over the Soviet Union.) The documentary is widely considered one of the greatest ever made about sport — and Eusebio is its star.
Eusebio then moved to North America, where he spent the last years of his career playing for the Boston Minutemen, the Toronto Metros, the Las Vegas Quicksilver and the Buffalo Stallions through 1980.
He had many other great moments, scoring 679 goals in 678 official games according to FIFA. Benfica won 11 league titles and 5 Portuguese Cups in his time. He was declared a national treasure by the Portuguese leader Antonio Salazar so he could not leave the country to take a higher salary in Italy, as players do today. In 2008 Eusebio insisted Salazar was acting in national self-interest, not for his own enrichment.
Eusebio stayed on at Benfica as an assistant coach after his retirement and traveled widely with the Portuguese national side as a paid “soccer ambassador.”
When his body wore down, Eusebio was allowed to drift to the dying North American Soccer League, kept alive by Pelé.
Eusebio is survived by his wife, Flora, two daughters and several grandchildren.
He remained an ambassador of Benfica, which placed a bronze statue of him outside the Stadium of Light, where fans were congregating Sunday evening.
Survivors include his wife, Flora, two daughters and several grandchildren.
