N/A: Eusébio, Portugal, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game International Legends Collector Binder (Exclusive to Tesco)

EA Sports FC 26 was released in September 2025 and, by the end of the following month, had sold twelve million copies. The latest edition of the successor to the infamous FIFA series apparently included “a complete overhaul of dribbling mechanics”, “more lifelike goalkeeping animations” and the ability to make your Career Mode starlets experience homesickness. I’m sure all of this is great but as someone who hasn’t played a football game released since 2008 it isn’t exactly making me want to remortgage and buy a PS5. FC 26 can boast incredible attention to detail, however, with more than 20,000 licensed players and a host of realistic stadia including Everton’s new offering and the, never not amusing, Stadion Wankdorf home of Swiss side BSC Young Boys. Graphically it also looks frighteningly realistic and a far cry from Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer but probably doesn’t let you play in a medieval castle.

Access to such licensing was not always a given for the franchise formally known as FIFA leading to some creative representations of the stars of the game. FIFA 2000 had Ronaldo and Youri Djorkaeff represented as ‘No.9’ and ‘No.6” due to the former’s own, fairly awful, Ronaldo V-Football game. Euro 2008 seemed to have all bases covered except Wales where Roderick Earlshow and Colin Belmont provided attacking flair. These pale in comparison, however, to the creative work carried out by Konami for the earlier titles in the Pro Evolution Soccer series. My first encounter with this was in the second instalment of the franchise on the PS2 where my Master League stalwarts Stromer, Minanda and Castolo were joined, and gradually replaced, at Navarra by the likes of Roberto Larcos, Oranges005 and Naldorinho. As the Master League progressed a host of legends became available on free transfers and while Roberto Baggio and Eric Cantona were there in all their glory others clearly hadn’t signed away their likenesses. Thankfully Konami stepped in again and nostalgic Aragon (Manchester United) fans could finally reunite the legendary front three of Denny Loe, Better and Charleston. Alternatively you could, as I did, take a punt on their 1968 European Cup final opponent Eubesio.

While Eubesio was something of an unknown quantity the same cannot be said for the legendary Eusébio on whom he was based. Born in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique he scored a preposterous 77 goals in 42 games for CD Maxaquene before moving to Benfica in 1960. Across the next fifteen years he scored 473 goals in 440 appearances winning eleven Portuguese league championships, the European Cup and the Ballon d’Or establishing himself as one of the greatest footballers of all time. In the 1966 World Cup in England he scored nine goals to help Portugal to an impressive third place finish including four against North Korea who had raced to a 3-0 lead in the quarter final only to lose 5-3 thanks to Eusébio’s brilliance. Despite deteriorating knees he moved to the United States in 1975 and helped Toronto Metros-Croatia to Soccer Bowl glory in 1976. His final professional season was indoors with the Buffalo Stallions (dreadlock Rasta?) in 1980 and brought a close to a phenomenal career with 623 goals in 641 appearances for club and country. 

Back in the world of Konami it’s fair to say that Eubesio was more of a bit part player in my Navarra side as Raul, Naldorinho and a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic carried most of the goalscoring burden for a side packed with big name stars both real and imagined. He more than played his part in the Masters Cup competition and could always be relied upon to come off the bench in tight battles with Marche, Abruzzi and Marmara. He will perhaps be best remembered, however, for his game changing turn in a multiplayer clash with Germany alongside my brother-in-law Dylan who took to doing his best Black Francis impression every time he got the ball to the tune of Pixies’ 1989 banger ‘Debaser’. Thanks to this I have never been able to hear the song, or the real striker’s name mentioned, without being transported back to my parents’ living room and a famous 6-4 victory over Carsten Jancker and co.

While Eubesio lives on thanks to a 8MB memory card the legendary ‘Black Pearl’ sadly passed away in 2014 at the age of 71. Among a host of tributes was the renaming of the road leading to Benfica’s Estadio da Luz as Avenida Eusébio da Silva Ferreira and his former club’s entire side for their 2-0 win in ‘O Clasico’ against Porto sporting his name on their shirts. He remains Benfica’s all-time top goalscorer and a point of reference for the club’s early European greatness. This was taken to questionable new places by current Benfica boss Jose Mourinho a few weeks back when Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr was racially abused by the Lisbon side’s Gianluca Prestianni. Mourinho steadfastly defended his own player, suggested Vinicius maybe shouldn’t have celebrated his goal and finished up by stating Benfica could not be a racist club “as the biggest person in the history of this club was black”. As always with Jose a lot to unpack but not one of his best moments and, if anything, an insult to a player who achieved as much as he did at Benfica in spite of racist abuse throughout his career. Thankfully, to the best of my knowledge, Eubesio and his Master League teammates had a much easier time of it.