Of all the trophies won by Eusebio in his illustrious career, none was more unlikely than the North American Soccer League Championship (NASL) title he secured with Toronto Metros-Croatia in 1976 — a team led by an unbeloved coach nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible” and one that relied on collections in local churches to pay for players’ wages.
A year after the 1966 FIFA World Cup England™ icon joined his good friend Pele in the NASL in 1975, the Black Panther was forced to find a new team after the Boston Minutemen had cash-flow issues. With the help of his Boston team-mate Shep Messing, the former Portugal forward began to look for a new club in the league.
“That season finishes and we knew the team was going out of money, we used to have to run to cash our cheques on Monday morning,” Messing recalled to FIFA. “It was Eusebio’s idea. He said, ‘Shep, make believe you are our agent and let’s start calling teams.’ So I did that, I didn’t give my name and I ended up getting him dealt to Toronto.”
The uniquely-named Toronto Metros-Croatia were formed in 1975 when NASL club Toronto Metros merged with Canadian semi-pro outfit Toronto Croatia in order to stay afloat. The players, most of whom were of Croatian and Yugoslavian descent, could not believe they would be playing alongside Eusebio.
Despite the arrival of the Benfica icon, there were huge problems for the team. Toronto struggled to draw crowds and had little love in league circles due to its uniquely ethnic-focused name, which NASL commissioner Phil Woosnam felt was bad for marketing purposes.
With the club deep in debt, the Our Lady Queen of Croatia church in Toronto took regular collections to pay for the salary of former Dinamo Zagreb defender Filip Blaskovic, among others, as well as to pay for the team’s travel during the NASL play-offs. When it came to paydays, the players rushed to cash their cheques, knowing that there would be no money left for the last ones to do so and they would be forced to wait.
Meanwhile, Eusebio fell out with the dictatorial coach Ivan “The Terrible” Markovic, who dropped the icon for a clash with Pele’s New York Cosmos in July. Shortly afterwards, Markovic was fired and former coach Marijan Bilic was brought in.
Somehow, against incredible odds, Eusebio overcame debilitating knee problems to register 16 goals and four assists over 21 games to lead Toronto to the 1976 Soccer Bowl, where they defeated the Minnesota Kicks 3-0 at Seattle’s Kingdome.
That championship proved the final hurrah for the Benfica icon, who battled on for teams including Monterrey and the Las Vegas Quicksilvers before finally hanging up his boots in 1980. Toronto Metros-Croatia, meanwhile, lasted just two more years before being taken over and renamed Toronto Blizzard.
It was not until 2017 that the city of Toronto — which is a FIFA World Cup 26™ Host City — could celebrate another major championship, when Toronto FC defeated the Seattle Sounders to win the MLS Cup.
One of Eusebio’s team-mates in Toronto was defender Bob Iarusci, who went on to play with Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto at the New York Cosmos as well as Johan Cruyff at Washington DC. He also captained the Canada international team in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Iarusci spoke to FIFA about Toronto’s epic title triumph, Eusebio’s fractured — and occasionally hilarious — relationship with Markovic and how the club galvanized the Croatian community around the world during the Soviet era.
Bob Iarusci: It was an incredible moment when he walked into our dressing room at Lamport Stadium. He was this majestic-looking man with Aviator sunglasses and just had this aura of confidence. The fact that he came into our dressing room was a shocking moment but it turned into exuberance as soon as he got on the field with us. He was the best team-mate of all time, he really was… He was amazing.
We had a pretty good group of guys that were impressive anyway but not to the portfolio that Eusebio carried. I was a young 22-year-old so I wasn’t thinking about who am I going to be playing with in my career. The league had created a credibility so to expect world class players like Eusebio would not have shocked anybody. He played two-thirds of the season with us and he was amazing, he was the great Eusebio. I don’t know how he was aged 22, I can imagine, but at 34 with two bad knees… greatness is greatness. He was the full package.
It wasn’t that they didn’t get along or that Markovic didn’t appreciate who he was or what he could do… it all started when Glasgow Rangers came for an exhibition game. Markovic came on the field because there was a tussle between our centre-back and their centre-back, who chopped Eusebio down in the 10th minute of that game. It was a retribution moment for our centre-back who told Eusebio he would fix that guy who went after his knees in a terrible tackle.
That moment caused the benches to clear, which caused Eusebio to then encounter Markovic in the middle of the field, trying to stop him from hitting the linesman. Markovic took exception to Eusebio by saying: “You may be a great player but I am the coach. You play, I coach. Right now, leave me, don’t touch me!” That set off Eusebio a bit and there was more to be said between them at half-time. And then Markovic dropped him for the Cosmos game. Eusebio went to the board, told them the whole story and after we lost 3-0, Markovic was unceremoniously relieved of his position.
We went to San Antonio to play against Bobby Moore and the Thunder. Markovic was coaching the team at the time… and this started Eusebio’s annoyance with him. At the beginning of the game, he said on set plays that Ivair (a Brazilian midfielder) would take penalties, Eusebio would take free-kicks from outside the area and then for free-kicks more than 25 metres leave it for (centre-back Mladen) Cukon because he has a hard shot. Eusebio said in front of everybody: “When Eusebio play for Benfica, he shoots from the penalty spot, he shoots from 20 metres, and Eusebio shoots from 30 metres…. you are crazy.” But Markovic took his stand and said: “Eusebio you are player, I am coach, you do what I say or you don’t play.”
The game was at 1-1 and there was a foul about 30 metres in front of their goal area. Cukon went to get the ball and Eusebio said to him: “Leave for Eusebio.” And so Cukon wouldn’t deny a request for Eusebio and walked away. He put the ball down and hit this cracker into the top corner and went towards the bench like a crazy man screaming. He was calling Markovic all these names but Markovic hadn’t seen anything as he was talking to an assistant about spelling a player’s name correctly to bring him on as a substitute. He missed the whole goal so when Eusebio came up to him screaming murder, he said: “What’s the matter?” Eusebio shouted: “I scored a goal from 30 metres… 30 metres!” We couldn’t stop laughing for two weeks after that. All these things endeared Eusebio more to the team. Everybody loved him and after Markovic got fired we went nine games unbeaten all the way to the Soccer Bowl.
We didn’t know all this existed until after the Soccer Bowl but we knew that we weren’t the choice team for the commissioner Phil Woosnam. The league did not want the name Croatia attached to the nickname of the team but because the Toronto Metros went bankrupt at a very inopportune moment, if it wasn’t for the Croatian community who saved the team we wouldn’t have continued and that incredible year wouldn’t have happened.
At the beginning of the year, Toronto went to Australia for pre-season and Australia has a big Croatian population in every city and we were treated like heroes because we were a vehicle of communication for the independence of Croatia, which was tied to Yugoslavia at the time. Toronto Metros-Croatia was one of the strongest public relations vehicles that they ever imagined. We realised it during the season and that galvanized us knowing that the community would do anything for us, including making sure that all the players were eventually paid.
We celebrated the 40th anniversary thanks to Toronto FC. We brought a whole bunch of players over from Croatia. We have lost a few players from that roster but it would be nice to celebrate 50 years of the great Toronto Metros-Croatia, led by the great Black Panther of Portugal — Eusebio.
