Eusébio the first world-class African-born players. Eusébio helped Portugal reach 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) and received the Bronze Ball award. He won the Ballon d'Or award for European footballer of the year in 1965 and was runner-up in 1962 and 1966. He played for Benfica for 15 out of his 22 years as a footballer, thus being mainly associated with the Portuguese club, and is the team's all-time top scorer with 473 goals in 440 competitive matches. There, he won
1966 FIFA World Cup from other African nations in October 1964. Despite this, after FIFA refused to change the qualifying format, the African teams decided anyway to pull out of the World Cup until at least one African team had a place assured in the World Cup, something which was put in place for the 1970 FIFA World Cup and all subsequent World Cup finals. The Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique participated for Portugal. These colonies only got their independence in the 1970s, while most other African colonies became independent in the 1960s. The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. The