R.I.P. EUSEBIO: 'BLACK PANTHER', KING OF FOOTBALL
By CAMERON DUODU
cameronduodu.com/.../r-i-p-eusebio-black-panther-football-king
In the annals of colonialism, the Portuguese were as bad as it gets. Next to the Boers in South Africa and the British in the Rhodesias, they treated their African subjects as little better than beasts of burden.
Africans in both Angola and Mozambique experienced forced labour, and through deliberately racist policies, the Portuguese created no less than four classes of people in their colonies: Europeans, mesticos (mixed race people) assimilados (Africans who had received
European education and had become “assimilated” by consciously renouncing African customs!) and indiginatos (Africans who remained true “natives”).
Although the policy of “assimilation” offered an opportunity for Africans to move up the social scale, it created a schism between them and the other classes that still haunts the politics of former Portuguese colonies, especially Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde.
When Dr Amilcar Cabral of the PAIGC (African Party of Guinea and Cape Verde) was assassinated in Conakry, Guinea, in January 1973, President Sekou Toure of Guinea told the Ghana delegation to Cabral's funeral – of which I was a member – in a private audience
that suspicions and rivalries between the mesticos and Africans in the PAIGC leadership had played a part in enabling the Portuguese secret police to infiltrate the PAIGC and gain access to Cabral to assassinate him.
Taken somewhat aback by this analysis, which contradicted my own belief that the PAIGC was strongly ideological and had thus eliminated all racist tendencies in its leadership, I asked whether Cabral's successor, Aristide Pereira (the PAIGC secretary-general)
was not black.
The memorable reply I received was: “Il est noire comme toi ou moi, mais il est un metis!” (He is black like you or me, but he's a mixed-race person!” ) This opened my eyes to the complexity of PAIGC politics and I have not been surprised that Guinea Bissau
and Cape Verde chose separate ways into independence and that Guinea Bissau has been so unstable while Cape Verde has remained relatively untouched by coups.
Because race was so strongly institutionalized in colonial Mozambique, as in Angola and Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, I was not particularly pleased when I heard that a footballer from Mozambique, called Eusebio, was doing wonders for the Portuguese national
team. Was he not politically conscious, I wondered. How could he be fighting for glory on the football field for a country that treated many of his compatriots like beasts?
What I wasn't taking into consideration was that in his own way, Eusebio was fighting for recognition for the people of the Portuguese territories. Every time the people of Portugal cheered him on the football field, they inevitably asked this implicit question
of Salazar and his his corrupt dictatorship: “How many beautiful stars like Eusebio are you maltreating in Angola, Mozambique and Gunea-Bissau”? Eventually, the centre in Portugal could not hold and Africa imploded its politics from within, when its own soldiers,
led by their commander in West Africa, General Antonio de Spinola, overthrew the dictatorship.
Now, I was cheated out of watching the Football World Cup in England in 1966, because I had had to leave London for Ghana to attend to an urgent family emergency, just when the World Cup was about to begin. But I listened to some of the commentaries on the
matches on BBC World Service Radio and the excitement which came into the voices of the commentators whenever Eusebio got the ball transmitted itself to me. As I realised that the matches were being televised and broadcast around the world, I began to appreciate
fully that whether he knew it or not, Eusebio, by his supreme exhibition of talent, was not only doing a yeoman's job for Mozambique and the Portuguese African territories, but also for the entire black race in the world.
For Eusebio's astounding feat in single-handedly destroying North Korea on 23 July 1966 at Goodison Park, Liverpool, was totally unmatched in World Cup history. The secretive North Koreans, unknown to the rest of the world in terms of footballing prowess, raised
many an eyebrow when they saw off the ITALIANS! What? Italy (known by its own narcissistic followers as “the Azzurri” – the blues) getting trumped by a nation better known for needling the Americans along the 38th Parallel than anything else? Italy – World
Champions in two earlier years at the time (1934 and 1938)?
Yes! North Korea's performance inspired sports journalists to ask questions like this: “Has there ever been a more romantic story than that of North Korea’s odyssey in 1966?.... The unknowns had already sent the Italians packing.... (the Italians were subjected
to a flurry of tomatoes upon getting back home)/!” .... And so on.
No wonder expectations were rife that something unusual would happen, when North Korea met Portugal in the quarter-final on 23 July 1966 at Goodison Park (home of Everton Football Club.)
But it wasn't what most people had expected that was to happen. At first, the “romantic tale” of the North Koreans seemed to be on course, and that North Korea would writing another chapter for itself: its team took a three-goal lead against Eusebio’s Portugal!
In the first half. Everyone thought: " game over"!
The “greatest upset” in World Cup history was about to occur, it was readily assumed.
But then Eusebio -- also known (in addition to the sobriquet, “Black Panther”) as the “Black Pearl” from Mozambique -- emerged from his “shell”. He scored twice before half time, and twice after it! Four goals in quick succession in 30 minutes! Portugal won
5-3! José Augusto’s header sealed the game.
The London Times, whose football correspondent of the time was, in my view, one of the best in the business, wrote: “It was Eusebio alone, with his sixth sense for popping up exactly where he is most needed, and his immense flair for seizing the fleeting chance,
who... restored [Portugal;s] fortunes.”
Portugal was on the way to winning the World Cup, led by a black man. But its next match, which would have taken it into the semi-finals, was against England. And the World Cup was being played in England! So guess what the “fair-minded” English FA did? It
decided to pull a stunt calculated to make Portugal lose to England. Instead of England playing against Portugal at Goodison Park in Liverpool, the English FA managed to persuade FIFA that the match venue should be switched to Wembley, in London!
This meant that the Portuguese, already tired from their rigorous match against North Korea, would have to make a train journey from Liverpool to London to play England – without obtaining the rest that they had anticipated enjoying, after their stressful match
against the North Koreans. Not unexpectedly, England won the Wembley match 2-1.
To add to the pain it had inflicted on Portugal by switching venues, England played a destructively negative game – Nobby Styles, a notorious England defender, was put on Eusebio as his “checker” and fouled him so often that had the match been played today,
Styles would probably have been sent off many times over! England went on to win the World Cup by beating Germany in the final. But I am sure that Eusebio is more remembered in the annals of the World Cup tournament of 1966, than England is.
Indeed, Eusebio won the Golden Boot for top scorer of the tournament, with nine goals in six games. Who knows how many he would have scored had he got to the Final? He wept when England beat Portugal. He later said in an interview that he asked the Almighty:
“What more could I have done before you allowed me to win the World Cup?"
Eusebio was born in a poor suburb of the Mozambique capital, Lourenco Marques (now Maputo) in 1942. He was spotted by a Brazilian football coach, who, in a barbershop chat with the manager of the Portuguese club, Benfica, apprised him of a young genius he had
discovered in Mozambique, called Eusebio. Benfica did no sleep on the recommendation but signed Eusebio up in 1961. It was the most fortunate signing the club ever made.
According to the London Guardian, Eusebio was “the prototype of a complete 21st-century striker, decades ahead of his time”. A superb athlete, he ran the 100 metres in 11 seconds at the age of 16 and adding this amazing speed to poise and power, he often left
defenders grasping at nothing, as he left them far behind him, with an unerring eye guiding his feet to put the ball in the net.
He could shoot with either foot, though his right was the power-house. He could also dribble and was good in the air. With his good looks, he was the quintessential football god before lesser mortals began to be given the title by writers too young to have
seen Eusebio at his best.
According to the Guardian, “his scoring record was astonishing. In 15 years at Benfica, he scored an incredible 473 goals in 440 competitive games, plus many more in friendlies. He was top scorer seven times in the Portuguese league and was European Golden
Boot winner twice.”
Eusebio died on 5 January 2014. His statue stands in front of the Benfica stadium in Lisbon. I shall not be surprised if another one is erected for him in a more central place in the Portuguese capital. For he was a national Portuguese hero. (Indeed, when Italian
clubs expressed an interest in acquiring him for enormous sums of money, dictator Salazar issued a decree declaring Eisebio a "national treasure" that could not be "sold!")
Africa is proud to have produced such a man. And who knows? Mozambique may also decide to honour him – with a statue in Maputo.