Mario Zagallo is dead: the Wolf is no longer with us and Brazil has lost its permanent hero

Brazil, the Brazilian national teamTHE Yellow greentransits to terminal crisis. And how if the Amazon remained treeless or the sea swallowed the beaches of Copacabana. One day after the coach was fired Fernando Diniz died Mario Zagallo. At 92 the old man passed away Wolf. If he were alive, they would definitely use him to get out of the disaster. But Wolf is dead. AND The hole he leaves in that yellow-green shirt is directly proportional to his legacy..

The facts about his sporting life are known even to beginners, and if not, Wikipedia, despite its inaccuracies, fixes them in the blink of an eye. It doesn’t happen there but rather by measuring the importance that Zagallo had in Brazilian football (and perhaps in culture)perhaps at the height of myths like Pele OR Garrincha. It’s that simple. Brazil has lost its lifelong heroto the consultant, the one who always came out to put out fires like the ones these days.

When the CBF was kicked out Joao Saldanha He called the Wolf who had already won medals as a player in the World Cup in Sweden in 1958 and in Chile in 1962. Zagallo received an unparalleled but dismembered generation. As he says Cesare Luis Menotti, put the toilet in the bathroom and the sofa in the living room, the easy way. He let the players decide. Thus was born the Brazil of the 70s, the Beatles of football of the time.. He had been a player for América, Flamengo and Botafogo until his retirement in 1965 and the following year he began managing the La Liga team. Lone star.

In those years the national team suffered chaos after the early elimination of the World Cup in England where Pelé miraculously emerged alive due to the massacre to which the Portuguese subjected him. Zagallo was interim between 1967 and 1968, but Saldanha took overThe old journalist, at the height of the dictatorship, struggled with the shame of his communist faith, the envy of his colleagues, the mistreatment of the leaders and the hatred towards Pelé.who had been relegated as a substitute in a friendly against Bulgaria and had him sit on the bench with the number 13 on his shirt.

It was almost time to go to Mexico and Joao Havelangewho had not yet arrived at FIFA, fired him. Come on, Wolf. There were three months left before the World Cup and another friendly match, this time with Austria, would have been the farewell of the torcedores.

In a room of the Hotel das Palmeiras there was a meeting. The versions here take two paths. One who Pele, Gerson AND Clodoaldo They took the reins and decided it toasted bread, Jairzinho AND Rivelino They should be starters. Another thing is that Zagallo, aware of the internal divisions, proposed meeting alone with his players to form a group, forget the arguments and commit themselves with the aim of going on to win the World Cup.

Anyway, The three “leaders” of the national team communicated their opinion to Zagallo. To the Wolf It didn’t seem bad to him and he designed the system they would use. It was audacity. Pelé was the number 10 of Santos, Rivelino of Corinthians, Tostao of Cruzeiro and Gerson of San Pablo, where he arrived after participating in the glorious era of Botafogo (1963-69) sharing a team with Zagallo himself, two glories like Didi AND Garrincha and a young man Jairzinhoa natural 10 who, given the abundance of quality, had to be used as a right winger.

He Wolf left the traditional four-man defence: Happy to the arch; Carlo Alberto, Square, Brito AND Everaldo OR Mark Antony. He created what today would be a double pivot Clodoaldo AND Gerson, the man who knew everything, on and off the pitch. open to Jairzinho right now Rivelino on the other side and you never knew who the main attacker was, toasted bread OR Pele. There were no fixed positions, but space occupation.

The mobility and immense quality of those five men in addition to their starting play Clodoaldo (a Busquets or a Rodri today) gave Brazil exclusive ownership of the ball. You already know how that story ended. There were multiple titles such as technician or technical assistant. But In Mexico he painted the Mona Lisa and wrote the Ninth Symphony.. In Mexico, Little Red Riding Hood was devoured. Now, Wolf not this.