O Profesor

Mario Zagallo, the Brazilian "Professor" who won four World Cups as a player, manager and assistant coach

- Tim Vickery

The man they called “the little ant” was able to move mountains – which is why the death of Mario Zagallo at the age of 92 was greeted with such sadness in Brazil, with three days of national mourning declared.

It is worth dwelling on where Brazil stood when Zagallo made his international debut against Paraguay in May of1958. They were third in their own continent, behind Argentina and Uruguay, and were not considered among the favourites for the following month’s World Cup in Sweden. Almost 27, Zagallo was in a hurry to change all that. The little left-winger scored twice on debut, was a fundamental part of the team that not only won the Sweden World Cup but the next one in Chile as well, and then was probably even more important as coach of the Mexico1970 team.

Just over12 years after he became an international player Brazil were recognised all across the planet as the stylish kings of the global game, the country that everyone wanted to be for a month every four years. Pele, of course, was the magnificent poster boy for this extraordinary rise, but the contribution of Mario Zagallo was arguably at least as vital – albeit far less glamorous. The stars shine when the collective balance of the side is correct and, as a player and as a coach, Zagallo was a symbol of the successful quest to balance the joy of attack with the needs of the defence.

His career, and his thinking about the game, were shaped by the move to a back four which Brazil was pioneering in the1950s, looking for a way to react to the trauma of losing the1950 World Cup on home soil to Uruguay, when a teenage Zagallo was on duty during his military service.