Class is permanent

By strange coincidence, I stumbled across and became engrossed in a ‘Football Legends’ television show devoted to Eusebio late last Saturday, only to awake the following morning to the news the great man had passed away during the night.

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.