Exercise 8.2 - Solution

The curse rests on a remembered remark: Guttmann is said to have left Benfica after a pay dispute and predicted no European trophy for a hundred years. It is folklore because the story is passed on in retellings, not in a documented statement from the time, and Benfica's later final defeats fit the story after the event.

Evidence needed: a contemporary record of the remark (a newspaper report, a letter or an interview) from a source close to Guttmann, ideally with more than one independent account.