The World Cup quarter-final that turned 3–0 into 5–3

On July 23, 1966, Portugal trailed North Korea 3–0 in a World Cup quarter-final at Goodison Park in Liverpool. North Korea had already stunned Italy 1–0 to reach the last eight, so its sudden lead over Portugal looked like another upset taking shape. 1

Then Eusébio took over.

Portugal's star striker scored twice before halftime, cutting the deficit to 3–2. He added two more after the break, putting Portugal ahead 4–3; José Augusto scored the fifth late on. The final score was Portugal 5, North Korea 3. 2

The shape of the comeback is what makes the match so strange. North Korea did not merely concede a late equalizer after defending for an hour. It led by three goals, reached halftime still ahead, and then watched one player score four times in the same knockout match. The BBC's surviving match footage describes the result plainly: an underdog side went 3–0 up, and Eusébio's four goals helped Portugal win 5–3. 3

Eusébio's four-goal performance is the part people remember, but the box-score sequence is the real oddity: 0–3, then 2–3 at the interval, then 4–3, then 5–3. The match record lists the venue as Goodison Park and the attendance as 51,780. 4

North Korea's run had already broken the expected script. Its win over Italy was one of the tournament's great shocks, and the team reached the quarter-final as a genuine outsider. Portugal's response produced a second shock inside the first one: the underdog became the team with the three-goal lead, then lost anyway. 1

That is why July 23, 1966 belongs in the sports-history oddities file. The scoreline looks wild enough on its own, but the route to it is stranger: a team famous for upsetting Italy went 3–0 up in the next round, and Portugal escaped because Eusébio personally supplied four of the five answers.