This Day in History: 2023-01-03

Nr. 374

EUSEBIO ‘KIDNAPPED’ (1961)

In the late 1950s the three major Portuguese clubs were all alerted to a talented teenager called Eusebio playing amateur football in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.
On 17 December 1960, aged 18, Eusebio arrived in Lisbon to sign for Benfica. Legend has it that he came to the Portuguese capital to join Benfica’s rivals Sporting Lisbon, who had links to his club in Mozambique, Sporting Club de Lourenco Marquez, but when he arrived in Lisbon he was kidnapped by Benfica at the airport and hidden in an Algarve fishing village.
It’s a good story, but Eusebio denies it «It is a lie,» he has said. «Nobody kidnapped me. Benfica never hid me anywhere. What happened was that Benfica signed a contract with me as a professional footballer.» Sporting Lisbon did offer substantially more money, but he had already signed for Benfica.
It would prove to be the most important moment in Benfica’s history as over the next 15 years Eusebio scored 342 goals in 373 league games, which helped to deliver 11 Portuguese championships and the 1962 European Cup.

The 17-year old Eusebio’s signature was the subject of a fierce battle between Portugal’s biggest club sides.