“The best of all”
Brazil mourns the death of football icon Mario Zagallo
January 6, 2024, 9:28 a.m
He was the first to become world champion as a player and as a coach: Mario Zagallo shaped Brazilian football for decades. He has now died at the age of 92. The “Professor” was the last living member of a legendary team. Football is mourning.
Brazilian football mourns the loss of its icon Mario Zagallo. The former world champion died at the age of 92, as the family announced on Zagallo’s Instagram account on Saturday night (local time). Brazilian football is mourning “one of its greatest legends,” said association president Ednaldo Rodrigues, according to a statement from the CBF association. The CBF ordered seven days of mourning in Zagallo’s honor and a minute’s silence before the weekend’s games.
After Pele died at the end of 2022, Zagallo was the last living member of the Brazilian team that won the Selecao’s first World Cup in 1958. Zagallo defended the title with Brazil at the 1962 World Cup in Chile, and in 1970 in Mexico he led Pele’s team to the pinnacle of success as coach.
It wasn’t until 24 years later that Brazil’s next triumph would follow – in 1994 in the USA, Zagallo was assistant coach to Carlos Alberto Parreira. He then took over as national coach for a second time. In 1997 he won the Copa America with the team, and a year later the Brazilians were defeated by France in the World Cup final.
“A great idol”
Zagallo, whom they called the “Professor,” was directly involved in four of Brazil’s five World Cup titles and was the first to win the World Cup as a player and coach. Later, Franz Beckenbauer and the Frenchman Didier Deschamps also achieved this.
“I want to thank you for everything, because I owe a lot of what happened in my life and with the Selecao to you,” Pele said to Zagallo on the occasion of his 90th birthday. And the real Ronaldo said: “I have had many important coaches, but Zagallo was without a doubt the best of them all.”
Zagallo was a “devoted father, loving grandfather, caring father-in-law, loyal friend, successful professional and a great person,” said the family’s statement, which praised the ex-national player as a “great idol.”