Class is permanent
Added to the sense of sadness then was an extra layer of shock, because, even though the 71-year-old had been in poor health for some time, the random scheduling of the programme had sent me off to bed uplifted by a vivid impression of sporting vigour and excellence, the extensive archive footage showcasing one of the greatest of the greats in all his pomp.
And I was glad of that on Sunday morning as the world began to come to terms with the death of a legend. Nostalgia can sometimes distort the memory of the heroes of our youth, magnifying their talents and airbrushing out their faults, but the show’s compilation of Eusebio’s greatest hits – and nearly all his hits were great – left absolutely no room for doubt about the rightness of his place in the pantheon.
Ironically, my first awareness of Eusebio came with a game in which, uncharacteristically, his shooting boots actually failed him – the 1968 European Cup final between Benfica and Manchester United.
I was nine at the time and, despite having no memory of his ‘Golden Boot’ exploits in the World Cup in England just two years before, already knew enough by then to recognise he was Benfica’s danger man, the player who posed the greatest threat to United’s chances of finally realising Matt Busby’s dream of lifting the European Cup.
The moment when Eusebio came closest to doing just that has passed into football folklore. With the game on a knife-edge at 1-1, he found himself bearing down on goal in a one on one with Alex Stepney. Renowned for the ferocious power of his shooting, Eusebio opted once again for the thunderbolt finish.
On this occasion, it was the wrong call. Anything aimed either side of the centrally located ’keeper would almost certainly have found the net, but such was the unerring straightness of the shot that, for all its blistering power, Stepney merely had to hold his ground to make the save.
Well, I say ‘merely’ but, staring down the barrel of a Eusebio masterblaster, most mortals would be inclined to do the sensible thing and get the hell out of the way. Stepney was made of sterner stuff, of course, although even as the ball slammed into him like a rocket you half-expected that it would simply bore right through him on its way to the back of the net, leaving a cartoon-like hole in his chest.
Without question it was a pivotal moment in a contest which, with George Best doing his inimitable thing, Bobby Charlton adding his second and Brian Kidd applying the icing on the cake, United went on to win 4-1 in extra-time, creating history for the club and English football.
But it was Eusebio’s reaction to Stepney’s save which carved out its own place in the folklore of the game, as he hung about in the box until the ’keeper had released the ball to Tony Dunne for an opportunity to pat him on the back.
It remains one of football’s most cherished sporting gestures and was fondly remembered by Stepney this week. “Well, that’s the kind of man he was,” he said, “the respect he gave to me and to football was tremendous.”
Eusebio’s career stats are staggering: 727 goals in 715 appearances for Benfica and 41 goals in 64 games for Portugal. On the face of it, that kind of hit rate should silence any doubters yet this week a younger colleague – looking on with just a touch of bemusement at the three days of national mourning declared by Portugal for a man who was also revered in his native Mozambique and admired around the world — couldn’t help wondering if yesterday’s greats really were all that they are cracked up to be.
The best I could do was recommend that he keep an eye out for that ‘Football Legends’ show, which will now surely go on an endless broadcast loop. It’s not just the inarguable quality of the goals – one long-range humdinger after another almost bursting the back of the net — which makes a persuasive case for what Jose Mourinho this week called Eusebio’s immortality, but also the often far from perfect backdrop against which he performed his wondrous feats. The man himself alluded to this in an interview he gave in London two years ago when he said: “Football hasn’t got better, it has just evolved, from the ball to the boots to the training methods. Pele, George Best, Cruyff, Garrincha would have been amazing players today.”
Could anyone seriously argue with that? Indeed, playing on pristine pitches and with enhanced protection from what used to be the almost routine brutality of his era, you suspect that the natural athleticism of Eusebio – at the age of 16 he clocked 11 seconds in the 100 metres – would make him, if anything, an even more potent prospect in today’s faster game.
In any case, the wisdom that applies in the modern era applies equally across the football ages and finds its personification in Eusebio, the man and the footballer: form is temporary but class is permanent.
