Know about the Black panther of soccer, Eusebio

New Delhi: He lived for football, he breathed his last serving the Portuguese Football Federation and Portuguese FC Benfica. On the sad demise of this soccer legend, we give you a flashback about some major achievements of this icon of soccer.Eusebio da Silva Ferreira, was a Mozambican-born Portuguese football forward.He is considered one of the supreme footballers of all time. During his professional career, he had scored a total of 733 goals in 745 matches.Eusebio helped the Portuguese national team in reaching third place at the 1966 World Cup, being the top goalscorer of the tournament with nine goals (including four in one match against North Korea), he received the Bronze Ball award.He won the Ballon d'Or award in 1965 and was runner-up in 1962 and 1966.He played for Benfica for 15 years out of his 22 year as a footballer, thus being mainly associated with the Portuguese club, and is the team's all-time top scorer with 638 goals scored in 614 official games.During the 15 year old association with the club, he won eleven Primeira Liga titles, five Taça de Portugal titles, a European Cup (1961–62) and helped them reach three additional European Cup finals.He was the European Cup top scorer in 1965, 1966 and 1968. He also won the Bola de Prata (Primeira Liga top scorer award) a record seven times.Eusobio was also the first ever player to win the European Golden Boot, in 1968, a feat he replicated in 1973.For his game, he was nicknamed as the Black Panther, the Black Pearl, or o Rei (the King), he was known for his speed, technique, athleticism and his ferocious, accurate right-footed shot, making him an outstandingly prolific goalscorer and one of the best free-kick takers in history of the game.He is considered FC Benfica's and Portugal's most legendary player and one of the first world-class African strikers.Even though, he was born in Mozambique and having an Angolan father, Eusebio, could only play for the Portuguese team, since both of the African countries were overseas territories and their inhabitants were considered Portuguese.Eusebio's name regularly appears in the best players of all time lists and polls by football critics and fans.He was elected the 9th best footballer of the 20th century in a poll by the IFFHS and the 10th best footballer of the 20th century in a poll by the World Soccer magazine.Pele named Eusebio as one of the 125 best living footballers in his 2004 FIFA 100 list.He was 7th in the online poll for UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll. In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Portugal by the Portuguese Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.He has been called "Africa's first great footballer" and "Africa's greatest-ever player".Since his retirement till his death, Eusebio was an ambassador of football and was one of the most identifiable faces of the sport.He was often praised for his fair play and humbleness, even by opponents and for this, Eusebio will be remembered by all soccer associated persons, players and fans in future .