Zé da Europa, a nickname that forever defined Portugal’s first recognised football star abroad. There had been great players before him, but none became as popular abroad as José Travassos, the man who came to symbolise Sporting’s golden era of the Cinco Violinos (Five Violins).
He led the side to seven league titles in eight seasons, became Portugal’s standard bearer, and redefined the exquisite role of the inside forward at a time when Portuguese football was slowly but steadily moving towards a more professional approach that would pave the way for their first golden age in the following decade. By that time Travassos was no longer on the pitch, but it may have never come about if it hadn’t been for the likes of him.
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Born in tumultuous times
In 1926, Portugal was about to experience a dramatic shift in its recent republican age. Sixteen years prior a coup had toppled the monarchy and established a new political regime, at a time when only France and Switzerland were established Republics in European territory. It didn’t go as well as hoped. Corruption, political uprising from conservatives, monarchy nostalgia, the Catholic church and the military combined to mortally wound the regime from the start. The ineffective and costly presence in World War I, to answer Britain’s call, was a disaster, as was the death of Sidónio Pais, the military elected chairman of the Republic, shot dead in 1917. The assassination paved the way for a decade of anarchy, communism and fascism, each movement enveloping famous politicians, the military and institutions.
Come 1926, the country was tired of living on the edge, and a military fascist coup finally triumphed after several blunders, appointing Marshal Gomes da Costa as head of state. It didn’t prove enough, and years later, his cabinet elected a celebrity college maths professor, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, as prime minister. By 1933, he had taken control of the government and the country and established what he called the Estado Novo (New State).
It was during those years of unrest that a young José Travassos was born and raised in the capital. He grew up near Lumiar, an iconic spot for football lovers in those early years, where he fell in love with the green and white shirts of Sporting who had always played in the area. The land had been owned by the Viscount of Alvalade, the club’s first sponsor. Travassos’ dream was to become a footballer, but he started his professional life as a mechanic, aged only 13, and three years later got a better job at CUF, which was starting to develop a metallurgical empire on the south bank of the River Tagus, around Barreiro.
From mechanic to midfield maestro
The company had a football club that also wore green and white and was becoming popular, as it allowed those who wanted to follow a football career to have a decent job during the week. Travassos enlisted in the company and the club, and there he played for the next three years. He began playing in the youth setup but was so good that he quickly got promoted to the first team. He had an amazing passing repertoire and an ability to read the game that was second to none, and gradually the bigger names from the capital started to pay attention as they would do to any prospect coming out for the sides of the Setubal district over the decades to come.
Despite Benfica and Belenenses showing interest, Travassos’ dream was to become a Lion even if, at 13, he had been sent home by the celebrated manager Josefz Szabo who deemed him too skinny to play the game properly. That year was 1939, a time when Szabo was focusing on polishing the devastating attacking skills of a certain Fernando Peyroteo. Six years later, with the Mozambique-born striker already the nation’s great superstar, Travassos would find his way to Campo Grande to fulfil his teenage dream.
Sporting win “hide and seek” shenanigans with Porto
Yet, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. While Sporting were taking their time to decide on the player’s future, FC Porto came knocking and reached an agreement with CUF to take the player north. Since Sporting seemed undecided, Travassos pledged his word to Porto and, only then, did the Lions contact CUF to close the deal, hiding Travassos in a hotel as the negotiations unfolded. CUF, however, were dismayed by the Lisbon team’s behaviour and let Porto know where Travassos was hiding. An emissary was sent to bring the player to Porto. Travassos realised that if he wanted to play for Sporting, there was little time to lose. He excused himself and phoned Sporting’s headquarters, telling them where Porto were planning to hide him. Using the many connections the club had within the military, only a few days later, Porto received a letter that demanded that Travassos move back to Lisbon to fulfil his military obligations. It was merely a strategy to lure him back to the capital, a trick Lisbon’s clubs often pulled at the time, and it worked. Travassos was stationed in barracks just outside of Lisbon and took the opportunity to put pen to paper with the Lions.
Fired by CUF, he was taken by a Sporting board member to one of his companies to work as a clerk, and he subsequently joined a training camp to prepare for the 1946/47 season. That initial contact with the club would set the blueprint of what became the celebrated Five Violins. Travassos would play as inside forward, feeding Peyroteo’s voracious goal appetite while scoring important goals himself, like the hat-trick he netted against Benfica in a title decider. It was the first of three league championships in a row where he played not only alongside Peyroteo but also Manuel Vasques, Jesus Correia and Albano, to complete the famous forward line that would dominate Portuguese football for almost over a decade.
Sporting won the league in three consecutive years before Peyroteo called it a day, but without his record-breaking striker they managed to go one better and win four in a row between 1951 and 1954, with Travassos as their main star. His name already echoed around Europe. Santiago Bernabeu tried to sign him for Real Madrid back in 1950, but he was persuaded by Sporting to stay in Lisbon. By way of compensation, the club financially backed a domestic appliance store he set up alongside Vasques, at a time when he was already the best-paid footballer in Portugal.
Revolutionary style of play
The way he patrolled the midfield and used his talent and vision as much to create chances for others than to go for goal himself set a blueprint that other clubs soon followed. FC Porto hired the promising midfielder José Maria Pedroto in 1952, paying a national record as he had been deemed the next Travassos, while Benfica sought a similar profile in Africa, bringing in Mario Coluna.
Travassos wasn’t just Sporting’s engine but also Portugal’s. His debut for the national side came in 1946, at a time when he was already bossing Sporting’s midfield, and when he ended his playing career in 1959 he was the most capped footballer in the history of the national side, with 35 games to his name. In 1955 international recognition came his way as he was called up for a European XI in a friendly played in Belfast to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Northern Ireland Football Federation. It was the first time a Portuguese footballer ever received such recognition, and he further covered himself in glory after being lauded as one of the best players on the pitch in a 4-1 win against England.
“Zé da Europa” is coined
The press was quick to baptise him Zé da Europa, a nickname that stuck for the remainder of his career. Awarded honours by Salazar himself, Travassos was by then a national hero whose fame echoed far beyond what he had achieved with Sporting, the club he guided through their golden age. He was also on the pitch in the first-ever official European Cup match, played at the Jamor stadium between the Lions and Partizan Belgrade. The game ended in a 3-3 draw, with Travassos providing assists for two of Sporting’s goals, before the Yugoslavs proved to be the stronger side, winning the return leg in Belgrade.
Travassos had arrived at Sporting at a time when the brilliant generation of the early 1940s was coming to an end and when he left, thirteen years later, all his famous Violin teammates had said their goodbyes. Benfica, managed by Otto Glória, and Porto, with Belá Guttman, had become much stronger competition than any sides his club had faced in the previous campaigns, and Travassos’ final seasons were not as successful. His departure was emotional for himself and the Sporting faithful, who felt that although a changing of the guard was in order, their memorable captain was leaving behind more than a legacy and an era that would not be repeated anytime soon.
Sorely missed
Dito e feito! After José Travassos’ career-ending decision, Sporting took 65 years to win back-to-back league titles again. He alone won eight league titles, which is the same number the club would win between 1970 and 2025.
His last accolade was the 1958 league title that allowed the club to return to the European Cup, even if Travassos didn’t play against VV Dos nor Standard Liège. He was scarcely used in that campaign, aged 33, and after he wrapped up his playing career, he embarked on a new chapter as coach of the under-20s. It was short-lived as Travassos had developed, since a tender age, a passion for hunting, and that became his primary occupation, alongside managing his store, in the following years.
He passed away aged 72 in 2002, a year when his beloved club captured the league trophy once again. Undoubtedly one of Portugal’s all-time greats, he left a legacy that began long before his career ended and that set the blueprint for the quality attacking midfielders the national team would develop over the subsequent years.
Historical benchmark
Travassos was much more than the trophies he collected, the international recognition he achieved or the way he led Sporting through multiple glorious campaigns. He became a symbol of Portuguese football evolution, from the enthusiastic semi-professional days of the 1940s to a more serious and professional sport that would turn Sporting, Benfica and the national side into some of the most prestigious institutions in European football by the 1960s. He had one foot in the past, the other in the future, and his heart right where it belonged, in the decade that made Sporting the greatest club side in the land.
By Miguel Lourenço Pereira, author of “Bring Me That Horizon – A Journey to the Soul of Portuguese Football”.
