Later, Nobby explained the crisis from his place at the heart of it quite vividly: ‘Antonio Simoes broke quickly with the ball after Shay Brennan had gone forward in an attack. I was tracking Eusebio, with Bill Foulkes behind me guarding Jose Torres. Shay was making his ground back and Tony Dunne was out on the left. We had gone forward – and we’re now paying the price with the score locked at 1–1. As Simoes played the ball forward, I made my decision to go for it – and break up the attack at source. I thought that Simoes had pushed the ball too far forward, and if I could get to it first I could shut down the danger. I was reassured that the ever dependable Foulkesy was behind me. What I didn’t know was that, just as I set off, Torres made a run that dragged Bill out wide. So there was no one behind me, and before I could get in the block Simoes knocked it by me. As I turned I was horrified to see Eusebio bearing down on Alex Stepney’s goal.’
I couldn’t help thinking how many times we had discussed and fretted over this possibility – and now it was happening. ‘Not again,’ I groaned. Not another failure to achieve the great ambition. Not another invitation to a thousand regrets. Before such giant and painful reflections, however, there was the burning thought: if there is one person you don’t want to see running through with only the goalkeeper to beat, it is Eusebio.
In such an awful situation, there was just one encouragement. It was a hint of body language from Eusebio: he was saying that he too was feeling more than a little pressure. He seemed to be thrusting, even lunging, a little bit too much. Normally, he would have kept the ball down, he would have taken his time and picked his spot, but he was hurrying, and when he thought he was near enough to shoot, he blasted it. Nobby had a tendency to kiss his team-mates in moments of triumph – most famously demonstrated to a global audience when he landed a smacker on George Cohen after winning the World Cup – and, had Alex Stepney merely parried Eusebio’s effort, Nobby’s enthusiastic embrace would have been entirely justified. But Alex did so much better. He held it cleanly.
Though all of us were, to various degrees, affected by tiredness, we were still quite pleased by the prospect of extra time. When you looked at Benfica you could see they were very close to their limits of endurance – almost certainly nearer to theirs than we were to ours. We were never afraid to play to the last minute of ninety – or to go beyond. It was a matter of English pride that had surfaced so strongly for Nobby and me when we faced extra time in the World Cup, and now it was with us again. ‘Look, they’ve gone, they’re knackered,’ said Wilf McGuinness when he came on to the field to give some encouragement. I heard him telling Nobby, who had run endlessly in his effort to contain Eusebio, ‘Come on, Nob, another half an hour and you’re home.’
The Old Man was keen we didn’t sprawl on the pitch during our little respite. ‘If you lie down, boys,’ he said, ‘you may stiffen up, and if that happens you might not be able to start again.’ I remembered Alf Ramsey making a similar point after Wolfgang Weber had forced England into extra time two summers previously. ‘Come on,’ said Alf. ‘You’ve got to get to your feet now. If they see you getting up before you need to, they will think you’re all right.’
Now, looking over to Benfica, it was easy to remember Alf’s point. The Portuguese were down and just about out. They didn’t look ready to run the extra mile. I had my socks down around my ankles, like Nobby, but it seemed obvious that if we scored they would be unable to come back at us. When Alex Stepney held Eusebio’s shot it was almost certainly their last hope of taking the game away from us.
Two minutes into extra time, our weary legs found new energy and our optimism was confirmed. Stepney kicked downfield and as the Benfica central defender Cruz struggled to control the ball, George Best was on him and carrying it away, free and closing on Jose Henrique’s goal. As he dribbled the ball around the goalkeeper, I found myself shouting, ‘Knock it in, knock it in!’ Eventually, in a second that seemed like an eternity, George sent the ball towards the net. Jose Henrique struggled to get back, but he couldn’t get there in time. George had done it.
‘That has to be it,’ I thought. I just couldn’t see them coming back, certainly not after Brian Kidd scored another a minute after George’s breakthrough. Kiddo headed a corner against the goalkeeper and, when it came back to him in the air, he just managed to squeeze it under the crossbar. I couldn’t see the fans out there in the dark, but I could hear them. I could hear the joy and the first singing. I had to hold back the tears that would make my eyes sting when I thought about what this meant. It was all over now. We only had to guard against any stupidity. Nobby and I agreed there was one priority: to keep hold of the ball. We kept
