Eusébio: The Black Panther Prowls

The quarter-final against North Korea at Goodison Park is football's most improbable twenty minutes. North Korea, who had eliminated Italy in what remains the greatest group stage upset in World Cup history, were 3-0 up against Portugal before Eusébio had finished adjusting to the pace of the match. Then he scored, and scored again, and won a penalty and scored that too, and completed his four-goal restoration of order with a right-foot volley that barely touched the ground before it hit the net. Portugal won 5-3. The Merseyside crowd, who had arrived neutral, departed as Eusébio's followers.

Nine goals in a single tournament is a total only Fontaine, Klose, and a handful of others have approached, but goals alone do not convey what Eusébio did to those six matches. He was the most physically intimidating attacker of his generation — faster than almost anyone, stronger than almost any forward, possessed of a right foot so powerful that goalkeepers would begin moving before he had decided where to shoot. Against Bulgaria, against Brazil, against Hungary, he brought to each game a ferocity that was theatrical in its scale.

The semi-final defeat to England was contested at Wembley, the most significant ground in world football that summer. England won 2-1 with a performance that owed much to the defensive intelligence of Nobby Stiles, who had been specifically briefed on Eusébio and executed his assignment with a stubbornness that infuriated but never subdued. Eusébio's goal was his ninth, and after the final whistle he was photographed walking from the pitch in tears — not the calculated sentiment of a modern player, but genuine grief, the grief of a man who understood he might not pass this way again.

He did not. The 1966 World Cup was Eusébio's only tournament; subsequent editions came too late or too early in his career. What he left behind — nine goals, a bronze medal, and a legacy so profound that his statue stands outside Estádio da Luz seventy years after the fact — was sufficient. The tournament produced many great individual performances. Eusébio's contained something rarer: a complete emotional narrative, from shock to fury to redemption to loss, played out across six matches on northern English grounds that had no precedent for what arrived.