If Pele is the Humphrey Bogart, and Rinus Michels the Martin Scorsese, then Mario Zagallo is football\u2019s Clint Eastwood \u2013 a true virtuoso at both performing and directing.<\/p>\n
The trailblazing winger hadn\u2019t kicked a ball for his country one month before Sweden 1958 began, but somehow got Vicente Feola to denounce the age-old, flair-dependent Brazilian script and started every game, before helping Sele\u00e7\u00e3o retain gold Chile 1962. Zagallo was then the filmmaker as his all-star crew made cinematic gold at Mexico 1970.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Old Wolf\u2019 nevertheless hunted more. If Katharine Hepburn could become the only person to touch an Oscar four times, he could do the same with football\u2019s most prestigious prize. He duly lifted the FIFA World Cup\u2122 for a still-record fourth time as Carlos Alberto Parreira\u2019s insightful assistant at USA 1994.<\/p>\n
On the 50th anniversary of the Azetca apogee of \u2018The Beautiful Team\u2019 in 2020, Zagallo, who passed away in January 2024, chatted to FIFA about that tournament, his playing days and more.<\/p>\n
FIFA: Mr Zagallo, you started out as a No10 in a country awash with amazing No10s. Did having a greater chance of playing in the World Cup push you to convert into a left-winger?
\nMario Zagallo: It did. I always dreamed of playing for the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o in the World Cup. I was at the Maracana in 1950 (Zagallo was a soldier working security at the Brazil-Uruguay decider). I started out as a No10 at America. When I moved to Flamengo in 1950, thinking about playing in the World Cup one day, I decided to become a winger. That\u2019s when my career took off.<\/p>\n
One month before Sweden 1958 you\u2019d never even played for Brazil. How did you not only go to that World Cup, but become Brazil\u2019s starting left-winger?
\nBelieving. Botafogo were playing in the Maracana and Paulo Amaral, the fitness trainer, told me I was being watched by the [Brazilian] coaching staff. This got me even more excited and I had a great game. That was the starting point for my call-up for the 1958 World Cup. There was a battle between Canhoteiro and Pepe at the start. They were the favourites. But what really worked in my favour was the switch from 4-2-4 to 4-3-3. Feola made that change because of me. When we lost possession, I was a midfielder. When we had the ball, I was an authentic left-winger. I won the battle with Pepe because Pepe played in a 4-2-4 the whole time. I didn\u2019t \u2013 I had a double function. I was the reason that the Brazilian national team, for the first time, abandoned a Brazilian style and played in a 4-3-3. And we won the World Cup.<\/p>\n
And an injury almost caused you to miss out on the tournament\u2026
\nIt was in the Maracana. The Sele\u00e7\u00e3o were training. It was two-touch [football]. I was in one goal and Pele was in the other. The ball caught one of my fingers and tore it. I went to the hospital. I even asked the [Brazil] doctor to not let me go to the World Cup, but he knew I had a big chance of being a starter, so he gave me 12 \u2013 almost 13 (Zagallo\u2019s lucky number) \u2013 stiches and I stayed with the squad. I missed three games but in the last friendly before the World Cup, I came on and scored against Inter Milan. I didn\u2019t know if I was going to play, but on the flight to Stockholm, Ricardo Serran, a great journalist from O Globo, came and sat next to me. He said, \u2018You\u2019re going to be a starter.\u2019 Feola had spoken to him.<\/p>\n
What do you remember most fondly from Sweden 1958?
\nThe debut against Austria was important. We won 3-0 \u2013 Nilton Santos scored a goal. The media said that Feola ordered him to get back but that I shouted, \u2018Go Nilton, I\u2019ll cover you\u2019. I was already doing my role in the 4-3-3. And in the final, we were losing 1-0 against Sweden, we turned it round, I scored the fourth goal and I put the ball on Pele\u2019s head for him to score the fifth. So I was involved in the last two goals that won Brazil our first World Cup.You were appointed Brazil coach just 75 days before Mexico 1970 kicked off. What went through your head when you were approached?
\nIt was everything I wanted. It was around 4 o\u2019clock in the afternoon. When I was with Botafogo, the CBF officials turned up at training and I was told by our physical trainer, \u2018Go over to that car. You\u2019re being called to lead the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o\u2019. The squad was already at a training camp. They took me home, I grabbed some clothes and off we went. It was what I wanted the most in my life. It was funny because when [Joao] Saldanha took over the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o the previous year, I took over his radio show, and when he left the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o, I replaced him there.<\/p>\n
Gerson, Rivellino, Tostao, Jairzinho and Pele were all No10s for their clubs. Can you tell us about your decision to modify some of their functions and squeeze them all into the same team?
\nI\u2019d won two World Cups with a 4-3-3. When I took over the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o, I had it in my head that\u2019s what I was going to do. The changes I made were moving Piazza to play as a centre-back, bringing Clodoaldo into the team and managing to field all those No10s: Rivellino, Tostao, Pele, Jairzinho and Gerson. They said it would be impossible, in such a short time, to make them all gel, but we won the World Cup.
\nEngland had what many felt was improved version of the team that won the World Cup in 1966. Was that Brazil\u2019s toughest test at Mexico 1970?
\nThe game was really difficult, the most difficult one. But I was talking to Tostao and he thinks the toughest game was against Uruguay. Uruguay went 1-0 up and I was thinking about bringing on Paulo Cesar Caju and moving Rivellino into central midfield. But I got lucky because the player I was going to take off was Clodoaldo and he equalised in the 45th minute \u2013 just in time! I went mad that day at half-time. I went mad at the whole team. I told them they did not have to do anything different from what they knew how to, but that they weren\u2019t doing that against Uruguay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Pele is the Humphrey Bogart, and Rinus Michels the Martin Scorsese, then Mario Zagallo is football\u2019s Clint Eastwood \u2013 a true virtuoso at both performing and directing. The trailblazing winger hadn\u2019t kicked a ball for his country one month before Sweden 1958 began, but somehow got Vicente Feola to denounce the age-old, flair-dependent Brazilian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":924126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-924125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=924125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/924126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=924125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=924125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=924125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}