Portuguese Football Legend, Eusebio Reported Dead
Former Portugal footballer Eusebio, often ranked as one of the best players ever, has died at the age of 71, portuguese media report.
The 71-year-old reportedly died early on Sunday morning of cardiac failure.The forward was the top scorer in the 1966 World Cup as he guided his team to third place in the tournament.
Portuguese state television channel RTP quoted his biographer, Joao Malheiro, as saying: “Having followed his life close up and on a daily basis, I was a witness to his health having become very fragile and there were clear signs of this in recent years.
“At the moment though this isn’t the most important thing, what’s most important is to remember the man who was, and always will be, in the place of the imortals of this country and was clearly of emblematic importance for Portuguese in the 20th century, above all during the 1960s when Portugal lived under a dictatorship.”
Nicknamed the Black Panther or the Black Pearl, Eusebio spent most of his career with Benfica in Portugal after moving from the then Portuguese territory Laurenco Marquez, now Mapatu in Mozambique.
He scored 733 goals in 745 competitive games over his career and in a poll conducted for UEFA’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2004 he was voted as the 7th best European footballer to have played the game.
He won the European Cup with Benfica in 1962 and was named European Footballer of the Year in 1965.