The legendary former footballer and former Brazilian coach Mario Jorge Lobo Zagallo, who died this Saturday in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 92, left with a legacy that is difficult to surpass: being the greatest champion in the history of the World Cup.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our eternal four-time world champion Mario Jorge Lobo Zagallo,” said the former player’s social networks in a note, which did not report the causes of death.
Zagallo, born on August 9, 1931 in Atalaia, a municipality in the impoverished state of Alagoas (northeast), was the first to win a world title as a player (Sweden 1958 and Chile 1962) and later as a coach, with the glorious and legendary national team. Brazilian that enchanted the planet in Mexico 1970.
This feat was later achieved by the German Franz Beckenbauer, champion as a player in Germany 1974 and as a coach in Italy 1990, and recently by the Frenchman Didier Deschamps, who won the World Cup as captain in France 1998 and won it as a coach in Russia 2018.
However, the German and the Frenchman were surpassed as players by the Brazilian, who was a two-time world champion.
But Zagallo’s record was not limited to those titles and the one from the United States 1994 is added to his record, when he was the technical coordinator of the team led by Carlos Alberto Parreira, who curiously was one of his physical trainers in Mexico 1970.
The couple also led the Brazilian team at Germany 2006.
The ‘Old Wolf’ was also runner-up as coach in France 1998 and commanded the Canarinha in Germany 1974.
In total, Zagallo played in five finals in the seven World Cups in which he participated as a player, coach or technical assistant. Another current record.
His beginnings as a professional player, always in the left forward position, were in 1948 with América de Rio de Janeiro and then he defended two other Rio teams: Flamengo (1950-1958) and Botafogo (1958-1965), in the one who shared the attack with the revered Garrincha and Didí, among others.
‘Formiguinha’ (little ant), as he was known in his time as a footballer, almost always wore the number 13, a shirt revered in Botafogo and that Zagallo himself asked for the Uruguayan Sebastián Abreu, another of the scorers, to wear in 2010. history of the Rio de Janeiro team.
The cabal with the 13th was due to his wife, a devotee of Saint Anthony, who in the calendar of Catholic holidays celebrates his day on June 13.
After hanging up his boots at Botafogo, in 1965, he agreed to coach the team of his loves, in which he remained in his first step until 1970, when he was called on an emergency basis after the departure of Joao Saldanha to be the coach of the national team. Brazilian who had qualified for the World Cup in Mexico.
Alternating his role as coach of Botafogo, Zagallo had already managed the Brazilian team between 1967 and 1968. And his first surname – which in Brazil is his maternal name -, Lobo, became his nickname: ‘The Wolf’.
The selection period between 1971 and 1974, Zagallo also divided it as coach of Fluminense, first, and then of Flamengo.
Between comings and goings, mainly returning to his beloved Botafogo, Lobo Zagallo forged an extensive career in Asian football.
In 1975 he went to lead the Kuwait team (1976-1978), in 1979 he won the Saudi League with Al Hilal and in 1981 he accepted to lead the Saudi Arabia team, with which he won the Asia Cup title in 1984. .
In 1989 he returned to Asia and achieved the unprecedented qualification with the United Arab Emirates team for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, but before the orbital tournament he resigned from his position due to differences with the directors over the awards.
In 1991, Zagallo was called to coordinate the Brazilian national teams and join Parreira’s coaching staff, whom he succeeded as coach until 1998.
After eight years as coordinator and coach of the national team, Zagallo accepted in 1999 to coach Portuguesa de Sao Paulo, his only club in Brazil outside of Rio de Janeiro.
Parreira, his student, called him again in 2003 to be his assistant in the campaign with the Canarinha until the 2006 World Cup, in his last job with the national team.
The retirement as a coach and the health problems that later afflicted him did not separate ‘Old Wolf’ from football, as he continued to be a reference for players, coaches and sports journalism who turned his phrases into ‘meme’ at a time when social networks were barely emerging.
The ‘Old Wolf’ stopped howling this Saturday, January 6, but some of his phrases on video were already immortalized in Brazilian football: “You are going to have to swallow me”, “Sex at this age is normal”, “There if we were surprised again”, “Holland is a lot of tilín tilín, like the America of the fifties”.
