Eusébio, o Pantera Negra

[carrepos]

Amanhã à noite, na RTP Memória, vai passar o Portugal x Coreia de 66.

[DEVILLICA]

[Theroux]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/06/eusebio-africa-world-cup

[L3GEND]

Amanhã à noite, na RTP Memória, vai passar o Portugal x Coreia de 66.

Ontem estive a ver o jogo! Que rei o nosso Eusébio. Os coreanos nem sabiam o que fazer para o parar. E a pinta com que ele marcou o penalty do 4-3 (logo depois de ter levado uma sarrafada e ainda a coxear) não está ao alcance de todos!

[Special_Red]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/06/eusebio-africa-world-cup

From Africa to posterity: How Eusébio lit up the World Cup 

The career of   Africa's greatest-ever player began with a chance conversation in a   Portuguese barbershop and ended in unfading glory

Last summer Africa's first great footballer was invited by his friend   and boyhood idol, Alfredo Di Stefáno, to the unveiling of Cristiano   Ronaldo by Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium. An €80m   purchase from Manchester United, Ronaldo was Portugal's new global star.   Di Stefáno nudged Eusébio and said: "That would have been you."

Long   before George Weah, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien or Samuel Eto'o there   was Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, who wears a symbolic lustre no   footballer can match as Africa's first World Cup approaches. Eusébio   affirmed his immortality in the era of Pelé, George Best, Bobby Charlton   and Johan Cruyff. Though his 64 international caps were acquired with   Portugal – and all his deeds at club level achieved with Benfica, from   1961-75 – Mozambique and Africa can cite him as proof that their   continent bred one of the game's all-time top 10 players not in the   present age of Drogba and Eto'o, but 68 years ago.

So the "Black   Panther" or "Black Pearl", as he was known, dubiously, must sense he is a   figurehead for this tournament? "I do, I feel very proud. I don't feel a   weight of expectation, but a lot of people are looking to me, with the   first World Cup in Africa," he says. "It's something for the whole   continent to be proud of, not just South Africa. For anyone born in   Africa, any footballer, the biggest party in football is going down   there for the first time."

The bare outline is that the first   great footballer to leave Africa to pursue  European recognition spent   13 seasons at Benfica, where he won seven championships, was Portugal's   leading scorer from 1964-68 and helped bring the 1962 European Cup back   to the Estádio da Luz, where he is immortalised in statue form and is   still an ambassador for Lisbon's biggest club.

Eusébio scored 727   times in 715 appearances for Benfica and won the Golden Boot with his   nine goals for Portugal in the 1966 World Cup. Four of those came in a   5-3 quarter-final win against North Korea. Forty-one goals in 64 outings   for his adopted country is a record that lasted until 2005, when it was   surpassed by Pauleta, a journeyman compared to this son of a railway   mechanic, who played for nothing grander than a Coca-Cola and a sandwich   until a conversation in a Portuguese barbershop shaped his fate.

The   first talker was a coach from São Paulo, the Brazilian side who were    touring Portugal after a trip to Mozambique (then Portuguese East   Africa). The unidentified scout eulogised a young striker he had seen   with a provincial club with ties to Sporting Lisbon. Listening was Bela   Guttman, the Benfica coach, who flew within a week to Lourenço Marques   (now Maputo). Eusébio could run the 100m in 11 seconds. Guttman outraged   Sporting by buying the 18-year-old inside-left for £7,500 (Eusébio now   says it was for €2,000, or its equivalent). Two weeks later he was   playing for Portugal.

So far, so romantic, but the rancour between   the two Lisbon clubs has endured. Even now Eusébio is irritated by the   suggestion that Sporting were entitled to his signature. "I used to play   in Sporting's feeder club in Mozambique. Benfica wanted to pay me in a   contract to go while Sporting wanted to take me as a junior player for   the experience with no monetary reward," he says.

"Benfica made a   nice approach. They went to speak to my mum, my brother, and offered   €1,000 for three years. My brother asked for double and they paid it.   They signed the contract with my mother and she got the money. She put   it in a bank in Mozambique, with a clause on it, saying that if her son   didn't go to Portugal and become a great footballer she would pay the   money back, because she had a good heart.

"There was a newspaper   picture of her with all the money on the table with her arms round it. I   had never seen such money in my life. Sporting tried to spread the   story that I'd stitched them up, but it was the other way round, because   they tried to take me for free while Benfica were willing to pay." To   escape the kerfuffle, Benfica hid him in a house on the Algarve until   Sporting had calmed down. At €2,000, or £7,500, whichever is the true   figure, Eusébio was to become Portugal's finest player. Ronaldo is   unlikely to have left Manchester for less than £200,000 a week.

The   world Eusébio left was one of European colonies and lasting   exploitation. Portugal's leading clubs farmed the country's overseas   "possessions" for African talent. Portugal's imperialism in Africa can   be traced to Vasco da Gama landing there in the 15th century on his way   to India.  Eusébio's pathfinders to Europe were Hilário, Matateu and   Mário Coluna, who joined Benfica in 1954. The new star's salary –   piffling, by today's standards – was twice the previous highest paid to   an African footballer.

The day of his leaving remains in the   foreground of his memory. And an anniversary approaches. He says:   "Eighteen years old, 17 December 1960. In December of this year I will   have been 50 years in Portugal. Always Benfica, it's a family to me. I'm   an ambassador for them and the national team. I'm with them all the   time."
Like most products of that gilded age, Eusébio describes   the deprivations of his early years with pride, rather than regret,   perhaps to amplify his achievements to the young and ignorant. "I was   already a good footballer, I just wasn't a professional. We played with   socks or newspaper rolled into a ball."

He is in London to support   the Fifa-backed 1GOAL campaign, which has a target of ensuring 72   million African children can receive an education by 2015. This is no   light ambassadorial duty for Eusébio, who has launched numerous   charitable programmes in Mozambique and still holds dual nationality. "I   have family there, fewer of them with time, and I have my friends. A   lot of my family have passed over to the other side but I still have six   relatives there," he says. He will be there for a fifth visit this year   when he flies in this week.

"Every time I go back it gets a   little bit better. You go to Africa now and there are a lot more   football pitches and a better infrastructure, but it also depends on how   it's managed after the World Cup."

Watching him rise from a table   with his bow legs and impossibly tender knees, you see the high   physical cost of 20 years in the game in a more brutal era. After   Benfica, in 1975, he toured the North American Soccer League, turning   out for Boston Minutemen and Las Vegas Quicksilvers among others. In the   1960s, Real Madrid's interest in him ceased when they saw how bad his   weaker right knee was (six operations, in the same spot, have left a   kind of ruin). His ambition was to emulate Sir Stanley Matthews and play   on towards his 50s, but chronic knee pain forced him to stop at the age   of 39.

As he tells that story about the Ronaldo unveiling, the   question of envy creeps into the interviewer's mind. But he is straight   on to it, like a loose ball in the box: "There is no jealousy. The   generation I played with was the best generation ever. You don't have   that now and I wouldn't change it for the money. It was all heart and   that's why there were so many great players. Portugal, England, Brazil,   Argentina: so many. That's why I'm so happy with what I had, to have   been a great player. I'm happy to have been part of that era.

"Football   nowadays is just commercial. Television commands the times of the   games. The players are very good, obviously. I'm happy for the   modern-day player who signs his contract and makes lots of money. The   players of my era helped make that possible.
"I respect the   football of today but the football of my time was better. Football   hasn't got better, it has just evolved, from the ball to the boots to   the shirts to the training methods – everything around them. Pelé,   George Best, Cruyff, Garrincha would have been amazing players today.

"When   we played Real Madrid and won 5-3 [in the 1962 European Cup final –   Eusébio scored two] it was soaking wet and the ball ended up weighing a   kilo. It didn't have a brand. That's why Pelé or Garrincha, if they   played now, would be so wonderful. Consider their boots. There was no   personalised footwear from Adidas. We'd have one pair for all surfaces,   and the kitman would change the studs according to the conditions.   Sometimes they'd do it in a rush and a nail would still be in there.   You'd take your boot off and there would be blood from where the nail   had penetrated your foot. Back then we made money, but we played for the   love, it was all heart."

In this fraternal spirit he urges   Africa's World Cup contenders to assume a strong group mentality: "The   problem is that the players are quite individual. I wish the players   would get together and work together. If that happened African football   would take another leap forward." And he chafes when asked why Portugal   have failed to convert talent into international trophies: "What a lot   of people don't know is that Portugal have won tournaments, just not at   senior level. Their juniors have always been very strong in World Cups   and European Championships.

"The problem is that when people think   of Portugal and these great players they forget it's a very small   country. It's not easy. Portuguese clubs have won European trophies, but   it's a very fine line between success and failure at international   level and it's a very small country. Compare Brazil to Portugal and it's   David and Goliath. The colonies in Africa – Angola and Mozambique – had   four players in the Portugal side in 1966 and that's gone now because   these countries have their own national sides. You've lost that stream   of players."

Of Ronaldo he says: "I know him very well, he's a   very good professional, a hard worker. At Real Madrid when all the   players leave training he stays there and takes free-kicks, takes   penalties, takes the ball on his own, dribbles. His work ethic is very   good, without the coach asking him to do it. When my colleagues were   back at home eating I'd still be practising and Ronaldo is the same, a   real hard worker. I'm not a Barcelona fan but I very much admire Lionel   Messi. I haven't seen him train. I know Ronaldo a lot better. Currently,   Messi is the best player in the world. He writes his name all over the   pitch."

To summon the spirit of his era – the 60s and early 70s –   just ask whether Ronaldo might surpass him as Portugal's nonpareil.   "I'm a footballer, not a pundit," he says. "Seven-times best footballer   [in Portugal], top scorer at the World Cup, voted into the all-time   Fifa top 10. Those are just the facts. I'm not sure whether anyone can   surpass that. It's up to you guys to decide. I'm proud to say I've done   something for the good of football. I don't compare myself to anyone."

He   points to Carlos Alberto – Brazil's 1970 World Cup-winning captain, who   is with him in London, and who scored arguably the greatest of all   World Cup goals. "There are things you can't forget, moments in history   like that."

[Aloutre]

Nosso REI

[Eagle Fly Free]

Parei de ler a meio, está cheio de erros grosseiros essa reportagem. 

[pcssousa]

Parei de ler a meio, está cheio de erros grosseiros essa reportagem. 

Sim a dos 7 campeonatos nacionais é imperdoável... ò bifes, não foram 7 foram 11!

[piratas15]

Parei de ler a meio, está cheio de erros grosseiros essa reportagem. 

Sim a dos 7 campeonatos nacionais é imperdoável... ò bifes, não foram 7 foram 11!

...cabroes!!! bifes do caralho!!!!!!nao chega terem -lhe ROUBADO o mundial de 66,??tambem querem-lhe roubar campeonatos  que conquistou brilhantemente ao serviço do GLORIOSO!!!???

[poiudivino]

KING!!!!

[Roy Kent]

O Eusébio só tem 430 jogos pelo Benfica?

Já vi noutros sítios que tinha mais de 700 jogos e golos.

[Pedro10]

Este homen é lendario!   

[Pedro10]

 

[SeN$hi]

És o maior crl 

[rambo]

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