Cristiano Ronaldo’s career is littered with hat-tricks to the extent you can imagine one of the spare rooms in his house contains only matchballs.
It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that his first treble in Portugal colours came on the occasion of his 106th cap. A couple of fine second-half headers and a deflected free-kick saw Ronaldo lead the Selecao to a 4-2 World Cup qualifying win over Northern Ireland in Belfast in September 2013.
His haul had added significance as it moved him on to 43 Portugal goals overall, beyond the mark of 41 amassed by the great Eusebio. Comparisons between the pair had long been irresistible but the hero of Portugal’s run to the 1966 World Cup semi-finals was not a fan of such talk.
"I am saddened because we can't make that comparison. It's a mistake because I played [64] matches to score that amount,” he said. "Now, after all these years, someone else scores [that many goals] but obviously that happens because today it is easier to play some of these teams. I never got to play against Liechtenstein or Azerbaijan."
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Cattiness towards some of the minnows of the UEFA qualifying rounds aside, the relationship between Eusebio and Ronaldo — both as individuals and in the collective Portuguese psyche — was never remotely as fraught or complicated as the Messi-Maradona psychodrama unfolding in Argentina around that time.
It helps that measuring Ronaldo against anyone amounts to a near waste of time today. He has more international goals than any player in history. There is also a helpful distance between his and Eusebio’s imperial periods.
Fans in Portugal were as eager for Ronaldo to emulate The Black Pearl as those in Argentina were to see Messi realise his billing as the next Maradona. But, where Messi was charged with moving his nation back to the summit of the footballing world, Ronaldo simply had to get Portugal back into the conversation.
Lisbon and Porto are the centres of power in Portuguese football, making it a curiosity that their two finest players are islanders, both outsiders. Ronaldo left his home in Funchal Madeira in his early teens — they’re not so different, him and Leo — to move to the mainland and join Sporting CP. Eusebio came from further afield, born in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique and moving to Benfica as an 18-year-old.
If history had taken a slightly different turn, Eusebio and Ronaldo would have been Sporting alumni. In his homeland, Eusebio turned out for Sporting Lourenço Marques, a feeder club to the Lisbon giants. It sparked a huge transfer controversy, with Benfica only registering their new recruit in May 1961, having agreed a deal the previous year.
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Eusebio was an instant sensation, scoring twice in the Taca de Portugal final against Vitoria Setubal and doing likewise as Benfica downed Real Madrid in the 1962 European Cup final. It launched a decorated career in Europe that reached its zenith when Portugal qualified for their first World Cup in 1966.
After back-to-back wins over Hungary and Bulgaria at Old Trafford, Eusebio made Goodison Park his home from home. He scored twice in a 3-1 victory over Brazil that sent Pele and the reigning world champions crashing out. In the quarter-finals, he racked up four goals — including two penalties — as Portugal came from 3-0 down to defeat surprise package North Korea 5-3.
From Merseyside, they headed to Wembley, where another Eusebio penalty came too late to inspire a similar recovery and Bobby Charlton’s brace left England bound for glory.
He finished as top scorer with nine goals, a major tournament mark that Ronaldo has never reached while otherwise demolishing the record books. Aside from the stunning quality of his displays, Eusebio’s exploits endured because after him there was nothing.
Although he remained with the national team until the early 1970s, Portugal did not reach another World Cup until 1986. They did not get to the knockout stages until 2006, when that generation-spanning crew of Figo, Ronaldo et al matched the feat of four decades earlier by reaching a semi-final. Since going where Eusebio had previously trodden, Ronaldo has gone beyond and more. Unlike the Messi and Maradona dynamic, the younger man’s achievements are not used to constantly re-measure and re-argue.
Eusebio and Ronaldo share the common feat of truly putting Portugal on the map as major players at international level. That typically doesn’t happen twice but, after Eusebio, they vanished.
In the popular imagination their star player never did. When he died in January 2014, Eusebio was laid to rest in the National Pantheon in Lisbon, a place typically reserved for kings and presidents.
During his era, Eusebio carried Portugal to unlikely heights. After the Euro 2012 semi-final heartache against Spain and another spell of transition, Ronaldo took his teammates and his nation on his back like never before.
Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Deco had now all left the stage, while Ricardo Quaresma had not seen eye to eye with Paulo Bento. A tidy and functional midfield trio of Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho and Raul Meireles left more and more of the creative burden upon the captain
If Ronaldo, at the peak of his powers, was to break new ground for the Selecao he would have to go it alone. It was a pressure he relished and the most thrilling example of this came in an unforgettable double-header with a place at the 2014 World Cup on the line.
Credits and acknowledgements
The Sporting News was fortunate enough to speak to a number of experts on Portuguese and Argentine football to enhance the Messi & Ronaldo: Destination Mundial series. We would like to thank the following people for their time and input – please do check out their superb work.
Santi Bauza: Argentinian football journalist and content creator, whose credits include Copa 90, CNN and Hand of Pod.
Dan Edwards: Freelance football journalist based in Argentina, formerly the long-time South America correspondent for Goal.com.
Peter Coates: Editor of Golazo Argentino.
Simon Curtis: Portuguese football expert and co-author of The Thirteenth Chapter.
Aaron Barton: Creator of English-language Portuguese football destination Proxima Journada.
Tom Kundert: Creator of PortuGOAL and co-author of The Thirteenth Chapter
Joshua Robinson & Jonathan Clegg: Wall Street Journal sports reporters and authors of Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two GOATs, and the Era That Remade the World's Game
READ: PART 6 | 'THE CUP, HE'S GOING TO BRING IT HOME...'
