North Korea World Cup 1966

Eusebio scores four goals to help Portugal come back from 3-0 down to defeat underdogs North Korea 5-3 at Everton’s Goodison Park in the 1966 World Cup quarter-finals. The football legend has died at the age of 71. Widely considered one of the best players of all-time, he scored 733 times in 745 professional matches Even in defeat, the North Koreans were, by now, undoubted ambassadors for their country. The warmth was shared on both sides. When Dan Gordon visited the players in North Korea, they were eager to return to Middlesborough. But were they just victims of a Communist system that had driven them to do well? Not according to Dan Gordon, who says that modern football has only just caught up with the fast-paced style that the Koreans played: “Football in 1966 was incredibly slow, and nowadays teams play like the Koreans did in 1966… I wouldn’t call them victims at all… they were visionaries.”