Stephen Eustáquio and the obsession with studying football

It seems that his father Armando was to blame. Because after every training session the man took his son aside and always repeated the same words to him: “You have to study the game. The day you stop doing it, you will stop improving”. Stephen Eustaquio he heard it repeated so many times that he ended up making that sentence a system. Up to make it an obsession.

When he was little he filled one notebook after another. He blackened those blank pages noting his faults, highlighting the characteristics of his game that he wanted to improve. Occasionally, when he was on vacation with his family, he’d jump up, grab his laptop, upload a video of a game from a few months ago. And in the amazed silence of those next to him, he announced: “Do you see this action? I should have made a different play”. Years after that fixation he took on the contours of blessing. Because Eustáquio has become a footballer of extraordinary intelligence, an all-rounder who is called a midfielder for reasons of synthesis box to box.

The Guardian called the Canadian one who “covers with a number 6, sets up like a number 8, but has the vision of a number 10”. Indeed, Stephen has been referred to in many different ways for years. The Athletic have listed him as the “vital” man for Canada’s World Cup. For his coach John Herdman is even “a key player to dictate the tempo of the match”, as well as “the embodiment of everything we need to grow our football movement”. Hyperboles. Or maybe not. Eustáquio not only has an above average technique. Above all, he is a midfielder who knows he has above-average technique. An awareness that allows him not to lose his temper, to wait for the right moment to look for the verticalization that affects the opposing defense. It is a skill that she learned in the family. In the true sense of the term.

His parents are Portuguese but moved to Ontario, Canada in the early 1990s. The idea is to seek a better life, but the call of their land is too strong. After ten winters they load their sons Mauro and Stephen, four years younger, on a plane and return home. The afternoons are endless. And when Mauro goes out to play football with his friends, he is forced to take his brother along too. Stephen is so small that he is almost bullied by other kids. At least in a footballing sense. “From a certain point of view it was his luck – said Mauro – everyone was stronger and faster, so he had to learn to read the game from an early age”.

Beginnings are difficult. Nazarenos, União Leiria, Torreense, in the third series. Then comes the call from Leixões, in Segunda Liga. Its history is fragmented. After a year he flies to Chaves, in the Portuguese top flight. Club staff say he looks like a footballer straight out of Barcelona’s Cantera. Yet shortly after the midfielder’s parable takes an unexpected trajectory. He wants Cruz Azul, in Mexico, in the suburbs of football. Eustaquio thinks about it and accepts. His debut oscillates between the surreal and the grotesque. Because it contains joy and pain, but not in equal parts. In the second half of the match against Tijuana he was lifted off the bench and sent onto the pitch. A couple of minutes later the boy takes the reverse route. The referee has just waved a red card under his nose. When he is now on his way to the locker room he is called back. The Var has established that yellow is the fairest punishment. Eustáquio returns to the field again, but shortly after he collapses to the ground. His knee cracked. It means eight months in the stands. “I learned a lot watching others play,” he said shortly after. In 2019 he returns to Portugal, to Paços de Ferreira. And after two seasons (and a half) of excellent levels comes the call from Porto. Meanwhile Stephen plays with the Portuguese Under 21 team. Together with Diogo Jota. Together with Bruno Fernandes. One day he gets a phone call. It’s John Herdman, Canada’s coach. He asks him if he’s willing to play for him. And he repeats it in 11 other calls. In the end Eustáquio accepts: “Canada has taken care of our family – he says – now it’s time to repay”. Thus the national team in the red jersey has found its new star. Perhaps harder to notice than Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David, but just as bright.