Cup Winners’ Cup conquest revisited: “Cantinho de Morais” propels Sporting to European glory vs MTK Budapest in 1964 | OneFootball

The front cover of the Bola celebrates Sporting’s triumph conquered “with the blood, sweat and tears of eleven brave Portuguese”

It was a moment for posterity, one that entered the lexicon of an entire football culture. The O Cantinho de Morais moment turned out to be the historical peak of what had been the strongest side in Portuguese football for decades. Sporting’s golden hour came after a campaign that included iconic comebacks, tense affairs and a series of replayed matches that paved the way for their only European win to date.

There was still more than an hour to go and they knew from experience that nothing could be taken for granted. But, after so much suffering, it seemed that at that moment the final outcome had been written in the stars. In the 20th minute, João Morais, who would not have even been on the pitch if not for injury to a teammate, went to take a corner and entered the history books…

Eusébio-inspired Benfica steal Sporting’s thunder

To get to that iconic sequence, though, Sporting had to touch the skies and plumb the depths of despair first. In 1963, the squad was led by the Brazilian Gentil Cardoso, after a short spell under Juca, a former club hero who had worked under Fernando Vaz, had been dismissed. Winning a league and a cup wasn’t enough for him at a time when Benfica were starting to enjoy their golden hour. Sporting’s Lisbon rivals were coming off back-to-back European Cup wins and now had the phenomenon Eusébio leading the charge.

The Mozambique-born striker changed the reality of Portuguese football completely. Up until that moment, the Lisbon Lions were the most established and successful club in Portugal, with Benfica a close second, particularly after Otto Glória brought a new dimension of professionalism that was lacking. Porto lagged behind, after coming strong in the first decades of the century only to then drop out of the very top. Eusébio’s success was Benfica’s success, and Sporting was relegated for the following decade to a supporting role and would later also be overtaken by Porto.

The Sporting lineup that won the final against MTK Budapest

In 1963, however, nobody knew what was to come and the club still thought of itself highly. Watching their rivals and neighbours winning abroad created a sense of necessity, and by the start of the campaign there were high hopes they would not only grab the league title once again but also the Cup Winners’ Cup. It was a relatively new competition, staged only for the fourth edition, the first with the full endorsement of UEFA, who acquiesced for the previous winners to be acknowledged as well, only because one of them was Fiorentina, the club that UEFA’s competitions committee chairman Artemio Franchi supported.

Strong field of favourites

Sporting started the campaign among the favourites, but they were not alone. Manchester United, Lyon, Hamburg, Celtic, Dinamo Zagreb, Atalanta and, above all, Barcelona, were amongst the favourites as well, so it would be a tough nut to crack. The draw wasn’t kind either to Sporting as they kicked off their campaign against a much-fancied Atalanta side. A 2-0 defeat in Bergamo almost shattered their title hopes, but then a masterful comeback at Alvalade with a 3-1 win forced an extra match to be played. It would become a recurrent theme of the run. At a neutral venue, Barcelona no less, the Portuguese team won 3-1 again thanks to a Mascarenhas a brace.

Sporting captain Fernando Mendes perches the Cup Winners’ Cup trophy on his head

Record win (16-1!) against APOEL in Lisbon

After such a tough first hurdle, fate compensated the Lions by putting APOEL in their path for the following round, and it couldn’t have been any smoother. Both legs were played in Lisbon, as APOEL took up Sporting’s offer of having all their expenses paid to stay a week in Portugal. Hence, Sporting avoided the need to travel to Cyprus and celebrated in style with an historic 16-1 win in their “home” tie. It remains the biggest winning margin in the history of UEFA competitions, with seven players hitting the scoreboard and Mascarenhas netting six goals to his name.

With both Atalanta and Barcelona now out of the competition, things started to get interesting. As Lyon disposed of Hamburg, Celtic beat Slovan Bratislava and MTK Budapest faced off against Fenerbahce, Sporting had to travel to Manchester to met the Holy Trinity of George Best, Dennis Law and Bobby Charlton on their way to their first English league win. It couldn’t have gotten much worse as the Red Devils ran riot at Old Trafford. Law scored a hat-trick and Charlton netted a fourth while Osvaldo pulled one back for the Portuguese.

Miracle comeback in Lisbon

Three weeks later Sporting fans flocked to Estádio José de Alvalade knowing they needed a miracle in Lisbon, and that was what they got. On 18 March, the stadium experienced what was perhaps its greatest ever European night with Sporting banging in five goals without reply past the English champions to be. Osvaldo scored a hat-trick and Geo and Morais joined in the celebrations.

Sporting’s greatest ever European night saw the Lions sensationally beat Manchester United 5-0 at Alvalade to turn around a 4-1 first-leg deficit

While everyone now expected a Celtic vs Sporting final, two sides with identical kits, the Scots ended up surprisingly beaten by MTK Budapest. Sporting meanwhile, needed another replay to dispose of Olympique Lyon in the semi-final after two draws, Osvaldo the hero once again.

The Portuguese team arrived in Brussels for the final as favourites, but the international reputation of Hungarian football was still high, and MTK Budapest had a lot of history behind them. Nevertheless, the prospect did not instil any sort of excitement among the locals, with fewer than 4,000 supporters turning up to the Heysel ground to witness the final. The Hungarians had almost no support whatsoever, with visas being denied by the communist authorities in the country, while Sporting mustered a little bit of backing from the small community of emigrants and a few groups of supporters who flew to Belgium to follow the team.

“Poucos mas Bons” – A small crowd assembled in Brussels for the first game, a thrilling 3-3 draw

New coach after poor league campaign

By then, Cardoso had long since been replaced by Anselmo Fernández, his side’s poor showings in the league leading to his demise. Fernández was someone special. Son of Spanish immigrants who had made Lisbon his home and Sporting his passion, Fernández had been one of the architects hired to design the José de Alvalade stadium and was part of the building process a decade earlier. He never accepted a dime for his work, stating he had done it for the love of the club more than anything else.

Initially, he was appointed technical director with Cardoso reduced to the role of coach but eventually took on the job fully, with the help of Francisco Reboredo. Fernández was the first ever coach in Portugal who used sessions where he showed clips from opponents to explain how best to counter them, something perceived as absolutely radical back in the day.

Sporting and MTK captains exchange pennants ahead of kick-off under the watchful gaze of the officials

Six-goal thriller

Fernández had readjusted some of Cardoso’s ill-fated tactical decisions with success. With Hilário out through injury, João Morais stepped in to play as left-back alongside Alexandre Baptista, José Carlos and Pedro Gomes, in front of Carvalho, the club’s iconic goalkeeper. Geo and Fernando Mendes patrolled the midfield while Mascarenhas, Osvaldo, Figueiredo and Bé played in the attacking line. MTK had several Hungarian internationals in their ranks and opened the scoring in the 19th minute through a Karoly Sandor goal. Sporting equalised just before the break through Mascarenhas and took the lead upon the game’s restart thanks to a Figueiredo effort.

It seemed they were comfortable enough controlling the game, but in two minutes MTK put themselves back in the lead, first with an Istvan Kuti shot and then with Sandor netting his second. Nervousness took hold of the Sporting fan base, who watched from a distance through the RTP International broadcast, when Figueiredo came to the rescue to make it 3-3.

The game went into extra time, but nobody else scored and, according to UEFA rules, there should be a replay match in three days’ time. The match had been played on a Wednesday, 13 May, and Heysel was already booked for a league match on the weekend, so the sides were moved to Antwerp on the following Friday. With Bé injured, Morais was moved from wingback to left winger, as Pericles moved into midfield so that Fernando Mendes could play in defence.

Sporting almost scored a late winner in Brussels

The players were still exhausted from their efforts on Wednesday, with Géo and José Carlos clearly carrying injuries, but the local crowd seemed more into the spirit of the competition and 15,000 came in to witness the match. It had already been decided beforehand that no third game would take place and if there was a tie at the end of the 120 minutes, a coin toss would decide the winner.

Morais spots goalkeeper weakness

Morais, who would not have been there had Hilario and Bé not injured themselves, only asked one thing of Anselmo Fernández: to take all the corners. He had sussed out that the way the Hungarian goalkeeper positioned himself would be perfect for an attempt at a direct shot on goal. Fernández was not too keen, but he gave him the go-ahead to at least give it one go.

Come the 20th minute Sporting, who had enjoyed the upper hand thus far as the Hungarians were equally worn out, won a corner on the left side of their attacking line. Morais coolly claimed the ball, placed it in the quadrant and proved his theory correct with a shot that curled directly into the net with Ferenc Kovalik left floundering. It was a goal for the ages, a shot of perfect technical execution that somehow showed that Sporting had been blessed on the day. They, who had battled through two replayed ties before the final, who had pulled off unexpected comebacks against tough opponents and kept themselves alive in the final thanks to their fighting spirit, were now scoring goals out of nowhere.

Ahead of the replayed final, A Bola newspaper pointed out that Sporting had played 17 hours and 30 minutes in their campaign

Morais became the hero of the hour. As the match progressed, it became clear that it would be the sole goal of the afternoon. Not even the last attempts of the Hungarians broke the Lions trenches who knew how to hold on, particularly thanks to the goalkeeping genius of Carvalho. When Pérides, the talented midfielder, turned his back on a shot, afraid that he might get injured from the blast, it was Carvalho who came rushing from his goal line to chastise him vehemently. It was one for all and all for one after that and Sporting claimed Portugal’s fourth European trophy after Benfica’s Latin and European Cup wins.

Heroes home-coming

Traveling back to Lisbon, a huge crowd awaited the players and they followed the club’s bus even when they made a pit stop at Hilário’s home where the left-back was still in bed, recovering from injury, so that he could also touch the cup, before going to meet the local authorities and celebrate with the fanbase at the Jamor national stadium. Supporters celebrated the European success all night long, as it was the fourth consecutive season in which Portugal was represented in a European Cup final, something that few would imagine possible only a decade earlier.

A huge crowd of Sporting supporters amassed to celebrate the achievement at the Jamor national stadium

Many expected Sporting to build on this successful endeavour, but they never did. Failed experiences in the European and UEFA Cup followed. A decade later they went as far as the semi-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup again, only to be beaten by Magdeburg from East Germany. On their flight back, they were stalled in Madrid as the Carnation Revolution was taking place in Lisbon. Sporting only reached a European final again in 2005. The UEFA Cup final, played at home, in front of their own supporters. Everyone expected the spirit of the Cantinho de Morais to rise once again, but things didn’t go their away as CSKA ruined the party.

The Olympic goal by the man who played a final as a left-back and as a winger in 48 hours remains still the proudest moment in the history of the club.