Portugal’s unforgettable moments in the World Cup

March 28th, 2006 | by: Luis Paulo | Comments(6)

I felt a little guilty for not talking about the unforgettable moments of Portugal in my last post. So I’m writing about those moments while I wait for the Benfica’s game to restart. Portugal has only been in 3 World Cups before and only qualified for the second round once. Therefore some of those moments aren’t happy at all.

I wasn’t even born in some of those games but I did watch them in tape.

Here is the list of all Portugal’s unforgettable moment’s in World Cups.

Unforgettable Moment #5: In 1986 Portugal was back in a World Cup for the first time after Eusebio’s generation. After the defeat for either Poland and Morrocos, Portugal was out of the World Cup. However, the unforgettable moment #5 happend during Portugal’s first match. They were playing against England and their striker Gary Lineker but it was the former Benfica’s midfield Carlos Manuel who scored. After this game, the Portuguese were hoping to repeat the success in 66. However, it was England that recovered from this defeat and qualified for the round of 16.

Unforgettable Moment #4: The 2002 Portuguese generation was supposed to be the best since 66. After a troubled start, Portugal recovered against Poland and was qualifying for the second round since US was loosing their game. When everything seemed to be working out just fine, Park Ji-Sung scored and drove Portugal out of the competition. Once again Portugal had failed to achieve the second round.

Unforgettable Moment #3: Between 1958 and 1970 only one team was capable to put the Brazilian out of the World Cup. That team was Portugal. It’s undoubtedly that the 1966 World Cup is the greatest moment at Portugal football history and this match was a main peace for that success. It gave them the confidence to face others opponents. The 3-1 victory against Brazil is for sure an unforgettable moment.

Unforgettable Moment #2: It was 6:00 in the morning and my cell phone rang. It took me a while to realize that nothing was happening. I just set my alarm to wake me up in time to watch Portugal’s first game. After I brushed my teeth and grabbed some snacks I thought I was still asleep when I saw that US had already scored. A few minutes later, they scored again, and again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Maybe Portugal was overrated but 3 goals in 30 minutes was not expected at all. That first 30 minutes where the US team scored three times is my unforgettable moment #2.

Unforgettable Moment #1: The greatest moment in Portugal football history was that 3rd place at Chile in 66. At the quarter finals with only 22 minutes, Portugal was already loosing to Korea by 3-0. Then Eusébio started playing. He scored 4 times in a roll and followed by Augustu’s goal Portugal defeated Korea and were among the top 4 teams in the world. 40 years has passed ever since and Eusébio is still remembered as the best player who ever played for Portugal.