A brief break from qualifying.
The earlier reference to Jose Couceiro provides me the opportunity to give props to his grand uncle, the great Fernando Peyroteo. Peyroteo was a member of the legendary Sporting Clube team whose attacking quintet was known as Os Cinco Violinos or the Five Violins. The other members were Jesus Correia, Manuel Vasques, Albano and Travassos.
Fernando Baptista de Seixas Peyroteo de Vasconcelos was born in 1918 in Humpata in the Huíla province in Southern Angola. Peyroteo began his career with Sporting Club of Luanda before moving to Sporting Lisbon in 1937.
Peyroteo scored 330 goals in 197 leagues games, becoming and remaining the all-time top scorer in Portuguese top flight football. Even Eusébio couldn't match that. (For the record Eusébio scored 319 goals in Portugal.) Peyroteo also holds the best goal per game ratio (1.67) of any top flight professional league. It says on the internet that only 15 top flight professionals who have played a season or more have ever scored more than a goal a game!
While the most of the rest of Europe was at war or recovering from war, Peyroteo's relationship with the net was prolific. He scored 9 goals in a match against Leça in the 1941-2 season and 8 goals against Boavista in the 1948-49 season. On three occasions, he bagged 6 goals in a game. He scored 5 goals in 12 different matches. And he scored 4 goals on 17 different occasions.
Peyroteo only received 20 caps for Portugal. The Luftwaffe made trips to Wembley problematic. But Peyroteo still found the goal, scoring in his debut against Germany in 1938 and again on his final international appearance against Spain in 1949.
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