📍Mafalala, Maputo, Mozambique
1942 – 1960“I was born in January 1942 in Mafalala, a poor, crowded neighbourhood of reed and tin houses on the edge of Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony. My father, Laurindo, was a railway worker from Angola, and my mother, Elisa, was Mozambican. When I was eight, my father died of tetanus, and my mother raised me and my brothers and sisters alone. The centre of the city was for white people; we lived in the bairros without proper roads, water or electricity. I skipped school to play football barefoot with my friends on dusty pitches between the houses, using balls made of socks stuffed with rags and newspaper. I was fast, strong and could strike a ball like nobody else. My father had supported Benfica, and I tried to join its local club, Desportivo, but they turned me away. So at fifteen I joined Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques, and I scored goal after goal. A Juventus scout saw me, but my mother would not let me go to Italy. In 1960 Benfica came to my mother with an offer she accepted, and I flew to Lisbon at eighteen. They called me the Black Panther. I won the European Cup with Benfica in 1962 and was the top scorer at the 1966 World Cup, and I won the Ballon d'Or in 1965. I never forgot Mafalala, where I learned to play with a ball of rags, and I am honoured there today.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today