Children, former players and fans celebrate Zagallo's legacy

Joy, simplicity and love for the selection. These are the words most used by those who attended the wake of four-time champion Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo this Sunday. Family members, players, sports journalists, club directors and admirers attended the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), in Barra da Tijuca, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, to pay their last tributes to one of the biggest names in football in the world. Brazil and the world.

On the facade of the building and on the internal walls where the wake was held, many images from Zagallo's career filled the spaces and dozens of wreaths decorated the path. Zagallo was there, next to trophies and cups, many of which he helped win.

Related news:

At the wake, Zagallo's son, Paulo Zagallo, was very grateful to everyone affection received both in Brazil and abroad. “For me, it is a satisfaction to have been my father's son, for everything he represented for Brazilian and world football,” he says.

He says that Zagallo was always a present father, who gathered the family for lunch on Sundays. On these occasions, they avoided talking about football and tried to concentrate on family matters.

“My father had a great charisma towards athletes. All the athletes really liked my father, the way he spoke to the athletes, how he led a group of even multi-star athletes not only in the national team but also in clubs. My father gave the players freedom to speak, to give their opinion. He talked about the tactical part of the team together with the athletes”, says Paulo.

At the end of his life, Zagallo was living with his other son, Mário Cesar Zagallo, and according to Paulo, he was completely lucid. “It was God’s will for him to rest.”

The family received from the president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues, replicas of the World Cup cups that Zagallo participated in winning, whether as an athlete or coach. Rodrigues highlighted the affection that Zagallo had for the team and said that this should serve as an inspiration for new athletes.

“It is an important moment for them to once again benefit from this legacy of will and determination, both as an athlete, as a coach and as a fan. May each of these athletes be able to rescue the work that Zagallo developed and be inspired by him to know that the Brazilian team's shirt has to be an honored, blessed shirt and always defended with great pride.”

Affection for the selection

Former players and club directors paid tribute and fondly recalled moments spent with the coach. For the former Brazilian national team player and vice-president of the São Paulo Football Federation. Mauro Silva, Zagallo leaves work beyond the fields and the technical part, he leaves joy and charisma. “To find a monster, an icon of Brazilian football, so simple, with so much energy and so much charisma, that was contagious and helped a lot. It helped me adapt and feel good in the Brazilian team and, consequently, helped a lot in winning the fourth championship”, he recalled.

Mauro Silva says that the welcome he received made all the difference. “I was a boy leaving the country team, arriving at the national team to meet a monster like Zagallo, seeing that joy, that enthusiasm, the way he welcomed younger players, for me it did me a lot of good and made me feel very happy and very comfortable in the Brazilian team and, consequently, this makes you enter the field happier and perform more to achieve more and more”.

Former player Iomar do Nascimento, better known as Mazinho, says that he was the great beneficiary of having met and worked with Zagallo. “I benefited from being able to join the team, from being able to play in a World Cup, from being able to fit into a tactical situation that he determined together with Parreira. I was one of the beneficiaries of all this. So, an important legacy I have from him is respect and knowing that this yellow shirt is very important for all the players who come through here.”

Asked about the large presence of former players and the absence of many current players, Mazinho said he believes they would very much like to be present. “I think there are other situations in which you cannot come, something that happens in each person’s life. At Pelé's, I really regretted not going. I was outside Brazil. I don't live in Brazil. I think everyone has a reason, but I believe everyone would like to be present.”

Defining moments

Former player Leandro Ávila was at Flamengo when Zagallo, and when he won the Carioca championship title and the 2001 Champions Cup. According to him, what remains is simplicity. “He simplified everything. Everything we did in training was exactly what we did on the field. So, everyone understood each other. The simplicity he had with us, this will all be preserved, and not just any coach has this, he transmitted this very easily to us”, he says.

He also says that Zagallo was more “emotion than reason”. When winning the Champions Cup in 2001, he remembers looking at the coach during the game: “And he was feeling a bit unwell, he looked like he was going to have a problem. A guy totally emotional, sometimes more than reason. And he demonstrated that. [A gente] I felt this good thing coming from him, this simplicity”, he remembers.

For the president of Fluminense, Mário Bittencourt, Zagallo's most memorable moment was in the 1998 World Cup, in the penalty shootout between Brazil and the Netherlands. “The way he gave himself to the team that day, taking player by player, looking them in the eye and saying that we were going to pass. I think that, for me, it's the image that sticks with me the most, of love, of perseverance, of believing in the result, of reaching another World Cup final, that image had a big impact on me. I was 20 years old at the time and I never forgot that moment,” he says.

The president of Botafogo, Durcesio Mello, says that one of the reasons he started supporting the team was Zagallo. “He was a Botafogo player and coach in the most successful team Botafogo has ever had, which is the 1967/1968 generation. So it is important. He will be greatly missed by us as Botafoguenses.”

According to him, Zagallo was a football revolutionary. “As a player, he was the first winger at the back and, later, he put on five number 10 shirts to play together in the 1970 Brazilian team. He is a revolutio
nary, a lover of the team, of hopscotch, as he called it. He's a Botafogo native like me. I met Zagallo a long time ago and I owe him a lot. I’m from Botafogo a little bit because of him,” he says.