Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, aka just Eusébio, a Mozambican-born Portuguese soccer forward, possibly the greatest soccer player of all-time, passed away today at age 71. He scored 733 goals in 745 matches, but his most memorable appearance was in 1966, at the World Cup in London. He had 9 goals in that tournament, 4 against North Korea, which probably ended up in a reeducation camp, poor chumps.
I was in the Sixth grade back then, and followed the games on my transistor radio, then watched snippets in the newsreels at the cinema. Life was sweet.
Goodbye, Eusébio, and thank you for the summer of ’66.
Here’s a Sunday treat: Mundial 66, the full length feature about that 1966 cup. It is the best movie ever made about my childhood. The Portuguese subtitles are funny – ignore them. The film is amazing.