Estoril vs Benfica 1946/47: the story of espionage, a revenge mission and a shock trouncing | OneFootball

Tomorrow Benfica continue their title charge with a short trip along the Lisbon coast to Estoril. Despite Estoril Praia’s impressive season, the visitors will be expected to clock up what would be a 12th win in 13 Liga Portugal matches as they chase down rivals Sporting in a titanic title race.

However, the Eagles were also huge favourites when this fixture took place in the first post-World War II championship, only to be on the end of a shock thrashing. Football historian Miguel Lourenço Pereira takes up the story.

Nascent league

It is hard to imagine a time when a giant of a club like SL Benfica could be hammered visiting a nearby neighbour that weren’t either their illustrious rivals Sporting or the once great Belenenses.

And yet, it did happen. Back in 1946, when the football league was still in its teens, the Eagles travelled in the opening rounds of that year’s season and were humiliated by an almost unknown then Estoril-Praia. It was a match for the ages, one the locals never forgot, even if their golden years ended up being short-lived.

Estoril Praia born in the backdrop of spies, casino and war

During World War II Estoril was one of the hottest places to be in Western Europe. Portugal had decided to stay neutral during the armed conflict and that made it the perfect place for spies from both sides. It was clear the fascist regime led by Salazar was openly in favour of an Axis win but the longstanding alliance and the economic dependency on exports to the United Kingdom left them in a difficult position. Spies flocked to Lisbon to move as freely as they could to get detailed info about the other side as well as to influence events, particularly regarding the much-coveted wolframium mines up north, badly needed for the war effort.

Round 2 of the Portuguese championship in 1946/47 brought goals galore!

At Estoril, the popular casino became the central point of connection between spies and their informers, of both sides. It was there that Sir Ian Fleming, the famed novelist, moved around when he travelled to Lisbon to prepare what became known as Operation Shell. With the help of the local UK Embassy, a network of informants was formed, deployed as workers for the petrol stations of the British company Shell all around the city. Many of those who reported to the team managed by Fleming had high-ranking positions within the regime.

Part-time spy, full-time football man

One of them was Cândido de Oliveira, a manager at the national post offices, whose tasks included controlling the information that moved around in telegraphs between Lisbon and destinations abroad. Oliveira was, by then, the most important figure in the history of Portuguese football, founder of Casa Pia, a former Benfica stalwart, the first skipper in a Portugal international event and a successful journalist and manager for more than a decade. He met Fleming through the famous Yugoslavian spy Dusko Popov, one of the many figures from whom Fleming drew inspiration to create his famed 007 James Bond series.

The Shell network would last but a few months before getting caught by Portugal’s PVDE secret police, with the help of the former Seleção goalkeeper icon and Oliveira’s personal friend, António Roquette, the then post-office manager was sent to the Tarrafal death camp in Cape Verde where he stayed for almost two years until the tide of the war turned. Estoril remained a relevant place for information exchange and the prestige of the local Casino outlasted the end of the war.

Football club benefits from wealthy patronage

Money was moved around regularly and eventually, that reached out somehow to the local football club, a minnow of sorts founded as late as 1939 thanks to the patronage of Fausto Figueiredo, the owner of the local Casino among many hotels and businesses in the region.

Fausto Cardoso de Figueiredo is a towering figure in the history of the town of Estoril, its Casino and its football club (photo: estorilpraia.pt)

The man who had presided over the same place that later inspired the renowned Casino Royale would uplift the football club to its best years. It started in 1944 when only five years after being founded, the club reached the Portuguese Cup final against all the odds. They got promoted at the end of the season and even though they were relegated immediately, Estoril found themselves back up in the top flight for the 1946/47 campaign.

Newly expanded league

As usual, after the regional tournaments, the league kickstarted in late November, and for the first time included 14 sides. All previous years the championship had featured either 8, 10 or 12 participants. Estoril was one of the fourteen, and in the first match, played away at Boavista, they were beaten 2-1. Nobody expected them to actually compete, so when Benfica was set to visit the ground at Amoreiras, the following week, many Eagles’ supporters assumed two points were in the bag. They were in for a huge surprise.

Benfica had been runners-up to Belenenses in the surprise triumph of the club from Belém the season before – the only club outside the Big Three to win the championship in the 20th century – and they were expected to go full force to recapture the league. Coached by Hungarian Janos Biri, the side that travelled to Estoril that sunny but cold early December afternoon included many of the great players of the decade in Portuguese football. The likes of Arsénio and Rogério Pipi up front, but also Espírito Santo, the first black-skinned football star in Portuguese football, and the great Francisco Ferreira.

Time for retribution

At first sight, it seemed there was not much the locals could do even if they too had capable players such as Mota, Lourenço, Lima, Vieira or Alberto de Jesus in their ranks. The memories of that Cup final from a couple of years earlier still lingered heavily in Estoril. They might have been surprising finalists, but nobody expected them to be thrashed 8-0 by the Eagles and many in the club remained resentful of Benfica and their perceived lack of sportsmanship. Figueiredo was keen to get even and what better opportunity than their first duel back in the top tier.

Surprisingly, that is exactly what he got.

With only 11 minutes on the clock, the inside forward José Mota netted the first into Orlando’s goal. Miguel Lourenço scored a second ten minutes later but Arsénio then put one past Sebastião da Silva to halve the deficit. Lima, playing as a main forward, then scored again, Estoril’s third, and when the referee blew for half time the home team were 3-1 up.

No comeback

The local supporters were ecstatic but many suspected that Benfica would come out even stronger after the break to turn events around. Few believed how the match would eventually unfold particularly when Rogério Pipi, who had become Benfica’s first footballer who played abroad, when he had a brief spell at Botafogo, scored to make it 3-2. The Eagles launched themselves into an all-out attack approach and that allowed Estoril to bide their time and play on the counter. It paid off spectacularly.

Lima scored Estoril’s fourth and Mota added a fifth before Benfica’s captain Francisco Ferreira netted Benfica’s third from the penalty spot. The 5-3 scoreline was already a crazy result, even by the high-scoring standards of the day, especially as it was Benfica who were on the losing side but then Mota completed his hat-trick with a long-range shot past Orlando with just a couple of minutes left on the clock.

Out of nowhere, Estoril had beaten the side most favoured to clinch the league title and had done it in style. Few teams could have claimed, even then, to score six goals against the mighty Lisbon juggernaut. Few have since. It was Estoril’s most memorable day.

Estoril score goal number four as Benfica are put to the sword at Amoreira

Golden years

And yet, it was only round two of 26, and the result of the Canarinhos when contrasted with the defeat against Boavista raised some doubts about which version of the club supporters would get throughout the season, taking into consideration that the only time they had played first division football things had ended poorly with the side being relegated. Not this time, though.

Estoril finished the season in a brilliant 5th, with the same points in the league table as both the 3rd and 4th-placed sides, former champions FC Porto and Beleneneses. All three sides had 33 points to their name and Estoril even enjoyed the best goal difference, as they had a +41, mainly thanks to their brilliant attacking line who netted 96 goals in all matches, thirty more than Belenenses. But since they weren’t able to beat either opponent in their head-to-head duels, history only ranked them fifth.

The following season they would go one better, ending the season in fourth place before finishing fifth the year after. It was a memorable period in the club’s history, one in which the lack of television or continental trophies has diminished their achievements, but that should rank alongside other golden ages for similar-sized sides.

In 1948/49 season Estoril provided no fewer than four players (Vieira, Mota, Alberto and Sebastião) to Portugal's national team (Photo: estorilpraia.pt)

Resurgence

Estoril Praia had to wait more than sixty years, for the 2012/13 season, with Marco Silva in charge, to enjoy such heights again. Benfica, on the other hand, would suffer after their surprise defeat at Amoreiras and were never really able to put up a title challenge against their bitter rivals Sporting who, during that season, under Robert Kelly’s leadership, began a cycle of three consecutive league titles. It was the first league win for what became known as the Cinco Violinos forward line, comprised of Albano Pereira, Manuel Vasques, Jesus Correia, José Travassos and the mighty Fernando Peyroteo.

Kelly would then leave Sporting and it was Cândido de Oliveira, the man arrested after becoming a spy at the service of the MI5, who had been working as sporting director to support the British coach, who took the helm, winning the following two league titles. After a year hiatus, Sporting did one better and claimed four in a row between 1950 and 1954 but, by then, Estoril had already been relegated, their best years gone by. They would have to wait until 1975 to climb back to the first tier, at a time when the squad included a certain Fernando Santos, who would both play for and manage Estoril, and indelibly write his name in the annuls of Portuguese football. But, like Billy Wilder once said, that’s another story.