Mario Zagallo, industrious left-winger, pragmatic coach and Brazil’s original World Cup man

It was the most familiar sight in Brazil’s dugout through much of the 90s and 2000s. A short and sagely grandfatherly figure with gold-tinted spectacles and a shining head, he would prance beside the touchline, bend and kneel over, as if to discover a hidden lock to unlock another dimension of the game. With a grin and twinkle in his eyes, he would walk back to the dug-out, whisper something in the ears of the assistant, and repeat the circle. He was Mario Zagallo, Brazil’s original World Cup man, who died last Friday.

He would have loved the alignment of the date of his death—January 05, 2024, though it was only a day later that his family announced his death. The sum of the numbers is 13 (5+2+2+4), his favourite number. He wore the superstitious No.13 shirt, made his most famous assist (after dribbling past five defenders to set up Vava) in the 1962 semifinal against Chile, with 13 minutes remaining on the clock. “It started with my wife. She is a devotee of St Anthony, whose birthday is on June 13,” he would explain.

He got married on the 13th, loved players and words with 13 letters too.

The quirks and idiosyncrasies are part of what made him an endearing figure in Brazil. No one is as decorated as Zagallo is in Brazilian football or even in world football—twice he won the Cup as a player, twice from the touchline too (in 1970 as manager and 1994 as assistant manager), besides managing them in 1998 and 2006 World Cups. He has played alongside the best of Brazil; he has coached the best too. With his passing, Brazil has lost a link between generations.

His influence as a player in World Cup triumphs is often understated. An industrious left-winger, he intentionally chose to be pragmatic so that the true romantics