Soccer fans called him the Black Panther, in the manner of the day, because he was from Mozambique, playing for Portugal, but there was little feline about Eusebio. He was big in the beams and solid around the middle even when he was 24 and, for a few magical weeks, the most captivating player of the 1966 World Cup.

He was the center of gravity in that tournament. It was his time. He personally willed Portugal back from a shocking 3-0 deficit to North Korea, the strangers who had already stunned Italy into a tomato barrage back home. Eusebio da Silva Ferreira — known as Eusebio in the Latin soccer single-name fashion — died on Sunday in Lisbon. He would have turned 72 on Jan. 25. His death was announced on the website of his longtime club, Benfica, and confirmed by his biographer, Jose Malheiro, who said he died of heart failure.

Eusebio carried Portugal to a third-place finish at the World Cup in 1966, after six failures to qualify. In 1998, a panel of 100 experts gathered by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, named him one of the sport’s top-10 greats.

He was awarded the Ballon d’Or in 1965 as Europe’s player of the year and twice won the Golden Boot — in 1968 and ’73 — for being the top scorer in Europe.