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Tim Vickery, South America correspondent
Football lost one of its all-time greats – one of the most influential figures in the history of the game – when Mario Zagallo died on Friday at the age of 92.
If Pele was the glamorous, glamorous symbol of Brazil’s first three World Cup victories between 1958 and 70, Zagallo – as player and coach – was the hard worker behind the scenes, the one who brought balance to the team and ensured it. It had a collective meaning. And he can add a fourth World Cup title – he was assistant coach when they won back in 1994.
He was on military duty at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium on the fateful day in 1950 when Brazil lost the World Cup at home to Uruguay, already burning with ambition but hardly daring to dream that eight years later he might be part of the team that would win the cup. booty. It took a lot of dedication and a lot of smarts. He realized that he would not be good enough to join the national team as a No. 10, so he went to play on the left wing, where the competition was not so fierce. He wasn’t Brazil’s most talented left winger, but he had something none of the others could offer – the ability to operate in midfield.
The first person to win the World Cup as a coach and as a player. 🏆🏆🏆🏆
a #world Cup A legend in every sense of the word.
Rest in peace, Mario Zagallo. 💛💚 pic.twitter.com/AWmOvxQKSa
– FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) January 6, 2024
This was vital. Brazil pioneered the back four system, pulling an extra player into the centre-back to give them cover. With four players up front – two wingers and a pair of strikers – it left them light in midfield. Years ahead of his time, Zagallo solved this problem.
When Brazil had the ball, he was a striker. But when he comes off the ball, he returns to the midfield, like a hyperactive “little ant” – his nickname. He was two players in one, a winger and a midfielder. This quickly became the norm, but it was revolutionary when Zagallo did it, and he was a regular for the team – perhaps more so in 1962 than he had been four years earlier.
After winning Sweden in 1958, Brazil faced the same team against Chile in 1962. It was an old team, and Pele was injured in the second match and played no further role in the tournament. Without Zagallo’s creativity up and down the left flank, they probably would not have won this competition. After eight years in Mexico, Zagallo was even more important to the cause.
His contribution to the famous 1970 victory has been consistently overlooked. People have looked at the great team and concluded that the players did everything themselves. This is a huge mistake. Zagallo took over as coach of the team in a short time, and applied the same principles of his playing career to the task of winning the World Cup.
“I changed the whole team,” he told me when we delved into the topic in 2006. “I didn’t accept the idea of 4-2-4.” [which Brazil were still playing]. “We couldn’t have won the World Cup using this system. We had to move on.”
Not trusting centre-backs, he moved Wilson da Silva Piazza to centre-back, opening up space for the young, dynamic and elegant Clodualdo as a central midfielder. Rivelino, who improvised on the left of midfield, adapted the dual role of winger and midfielder that Zagallo himself played so successfully.
He stressed that the main idea is to prevent the side from stretching and making it easier to play through it.
He continued, “So, we played as a single, cohesive mass, leaving only Tostao up front. I am happy to see the team in terms of the 4-5-1 formation. We have brought our team back behind the ball line.”
This was years ahead of his time. Once again, Zagallo succeeded in balancing the desire to attack with the need to defend. Brazil in 1970 is often seen as the pinnacle of possibility in football, and this represented as much a triumph for Zagallo as it did for Pele, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto and Rivelino.
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Success in Mexico in 1970 meant that Zagallo reached his peak as a coach early on. He would never have that tactical advantage again. But he is still characterized by the extraordinary strength of his passion for the game and the Brazilian national team. He took the team to the semi-finals in 1974 and the final in 1998, and was a valuable assistant to Carlos Alberto Parreira in the 1994 World Cup win, as well as the huge disappointment in Germany in 2006.
In his 70s by then, he was probably asking too much. But when the opportunity came he couldn’t turn it down. I spoke with Zagallo at length in 2006 about his history with Pele, and about the efforts he made, in vain, to persuade him to play in the 1974 World Cup. Decades later, he was still almost in disbelief that someone would pass up the chance to represent the country on such an occasion.
Zagallo said: “The decision to withdraw from the national team is not a decision I will make.”
I pointed out that he would probably play until then if someone picked him. “I won’t do a lot of running,” he said. “But I’ll play!”
He was a force of nature, and the world game got worse after losing Mario Zagallo.
