It’s 1959 and Peñarol (founded as the Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club) are on course to the third of five consecutive national championship wins. Following the introduction of the European Cup, the club has successfully pushed for the creation of the South American equivalent: the Copa Libertadores.
Also following a certain European example, the club decides to amass the best players from elsewhere in the continent and sign CENSORED (Eusebio his more than able deputy), which delivers the first Libertadores Cup. Real Madrid still trounce them in the Madrid leg of the Intercontinental Cup after a draw in Montevideo.
So Peñarol go further the next year and sign a world class partner for him: JUAN JOYA. The Joya-CENSORED (i.e. Eusebio) tandem went from strength to strength over eight years and went on to deliver:
- 6 league titles,
- two Libertadores Cup wins,
- two Libertadores runners-up (would have been 4 wins with GD or away goals settling things instead of a third game )
- two Intercontinental Cup wins (against Benfica in 1961 and Real Madrid in 1966)
- the 1969 Intercontinental Cup Supercup (a tournament for all former Intercontinental winners i.e. “the 60s Super Cup”)
It’s largely down to that decade that the statsmen at IFFHS worked out Peñarol was the best South American club of the 20th Century. I’d say that Peñarol side was right up there with Pelé’s Santos one, and both light-years ahead of any other the continent has produced.
Despite repeated approaches by the Uruguayan FA, neither Joya nor CENSORED accepted the invitation to play for the national team, or else the 1966 World Cup would have quite probably gone elsewhere. Instead, they both joined Ryan Giggs in the pantheon of football greats who never set foot on the world’s biggest stage.
Their destinies remained interlinked all the way to their deaths. Ironically, Joya dies a year after CENSORED, just like he joined Peñarol a year later. Despite having stayed loyal to their countries, they were mourned in Uruguay even more than in Peru and Ecuador – to the point their families decided to bury them in Montevideo, with all expenses paid by the club. A Carnival song dedicated to them went on to top the Uruguayan charts almost 40 years after they had last kicked a ball.
Damn Garrincha for not letting me reunite them again, but he’ll make up for it
Eusebio knows the big boots he is being asked to fill after seeing his Benfica side concede seven goals to Peñarol over two games. He is aware much of that (two goals + three assists) came from the man on his left wing, so he is feeling confident about living up to it with him and the Canhotinho de Ouro to rely on.
So is Carlos Alberto, the man who had some epic duels with Joya in those classic Peñarol-Santos encounters.
Some apeman was going to sit on the bench with a big bucket of water bottles just so people realise them old wingers would go for 100M+ today. I opted for Schweinsteiger as no one whose name doesn't start with R will start ahead of Joya in my side. And Best, of course.