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Friday November 15, 2024

Brazil says goodbye to late football great Zagallo

By AFP
January 08, 2024

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilians paid their last respects Sunday to football legend Mario Zagallo, after the four-time World Cup-winning player and coach died at age 92, the final member of one of the country´s greatest footballing generations.

People attend the burial of Brazilian football legend Mario Zagallo at the Sao Joao Batista cemetery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 7, 2024. — AFP
People attend the burial of Brazilian football legend Mario Zagallo at the Sao Joao Batista cemetery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 7, 2024. — AFP

Dressed in black, the yellow of the Brazilian national team or the colors of the clubs where Zagallo played and coached, scores of mourners filed past his coffin at the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) in Rio de Janeiro.

Also on display near the lace-draped coffin were football-mad Brazil´s record five World Cup trophies. Zagallo, a diminutive left-wing known for his tactical brilliance, had a hand in winning four of them, more than anyone in football history. The “Professor,” as he was known, played alongside Pele in Brazil´s 1958 and 1962 World Cup-winning teams.