2024-01-07 22:04:58
Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo, the only four-time World Cup champion, was the last of the heroes of the 1958 Brazilian team to leave football fans orphans. In honor of the Old Wolf, West publishes a Time.news by journalist Augusto Nunes.
“Aren’t you going to listen to the Brazil game? I thought you liked football,” my mother said when I told her I was leaving for Abbud’s ice cream shop. Is she going to listen to the game against Sweden? I was intrigued when I saw her standing a meter away from the radio, with her youngest on her lap (and now asking her two children sitting on the sofa what the referee’s name was). I had never imagined that Dona Biloca would be interested in football.
I liked. At the age of 8, I began to understand myself better with the ball, my father had already informed me that I was a Palmeiras fan, I had memorized before the debut against Austria the names of the 22 stars of the Seleção and I had been following the homeland’s battles wearing football boots during the War of Sweden on the radio of my grandmother, an Italian immigrant who had joined the Brazilian fans after discovering that the cast included a Bellini, a Mazzola, a De Sordi and a Dino Sani. I knew that the Canarian team was doing well, that Garrincha had destroyed the scientific football of the Russian Communist Party and that, that Sunday, the duel in Stockholm would not be limited to deciding the World Cup: it would also be decided whether Brazil was capable.
What I did not know is that all Brazilians who on June 29, 1958 thought about anything other than winning the World Cup. I didn’t know that. And I really liked ice cream. I woke up thinking not about Garrincha’s dribbles or a Pelé goal, but about lemon popsicles.
Read also: “Seeing the King on the field is being happy”, article by Augusto Nunes published in Edition 31 of Revista Oeste
“I’ll be back before the middle of the first half”, I started to explain when I was separated by one of the brothers. “It’s not possible, it’s seven blocks to go and seven to come back. Just say that you don’t like football”, provoked the intimate enemy. I accused him of having spent the afternoon of the very tough fight against Wales at a friend’s house. “Only listening to the radio, not eating ice cream”, he said in the angle. “This kid is a bit silly”, my older brother summed up the general opinion. I was planning a cart from behind when my father entered the house and both teams entered the field. I took advantage of my opponents’ distraction, pretended to retreat like Zagallo to protect the rear and invaded the room. I needed a shirt. Winter was just beginning, but the cold had arrived.
I wore a Palmeiras t-shirt, without a badge or number on the back. I continued barefoot. And with those detestable shorts that everyone under the age of 10 wore, made by their mothers and aunts by amputating, millimeters above the knee, the legs of some adult pair of pants that had been defeated by time. If they had treated me with more courtesy, perhaps I would have left the ice cream until after the game. Under pressure, I don’t stay at home anyway, I decided. And I’m not bringing ice cream to these people. Not even for the grandmother, I became radicalized the moment the referee, a Frenchman called Messiê Guiguê as his voice shouted on the radio, whistled the start of the match and the walk towards the ice cream shop. And then I found the landscape strange: there was no one on the street outside my house.
Neither on General Glicério Street nor on Marechal Deodoro, I found it strange in the second minute of the game and on the first corner. Not on any other street in Taquaritinga, I was shocked 4 minutes into the first half, when I arrived at the intersection of General Glicério and Duque de Caxias along with Sweden’s goal scored on the sidewalk of my family doctor’s house and broadcast by the announcer , without enthusiasm, over the radio in the townhouse of a councilman who didn’t like my father.
Read more: “Brazil without Pelé”, report by Eugenio Goussinsky published in Edition 197 of Revista Oeste
Almost 10 thousand inhabitants had disappeared from the sidewalks and balconies, and all the cars were in garages or parked on the street. The only sign of life was the announcer’s voice. I found that very strange and thought about giving up. I walked with Didi, both slowly, he towards the midfield, with his head held high, the ball in his left hand and reassuring the team, I returned home, head down, with my hands empty and trying to prepare myself for the humiliating capitulation. which was only not accomplished because, in the 9th minute, Vavá equalized in front of the dentist’s gate.
Everyone was listening to the game, confirming the universalization of the powerful voice that overlapped the collective scream, the very same voice now coming from all the cardinal points, from heaven and earth, multiplied by dozens, hundreds, thousands of devices connected to the same station , going through all the windows that all the families had thrown open. And then the ears as attentive as goalkeeper Gilmar’s eyes caught the sound message: just follow the path to the houses.
Dazzled, I realized that I could eat ice cream and listen to the game, and then disconcert the country folk at home with the mystery of my ubiquity, because no relative knew what I had just learned and I wouldn’t tell them even under torture. I put together the new plan with the serenity of a Feola. The route redesigned by circumstances would now bypass clubs, public offices, associations, bars or taverns, commercial establishments, schools – anything that could be closed or devoid of radio equipment.
I went up General Glicério again, turned left on Duque de Caxias with the subtle elegance of Nilton Santos, started close to the right flank like Djalma Santos, stopped like Orlando in front of my opponent on the corner with Campos Salles, turned the game to the right like Zito and I ran for the hug when Vavá broke the tie under the second window of the lawyer who was speaking at my father’s rallies.
Brazil went down to the dressing room and I dribbled around Força e Luz’s ground to turn left at the corner of Campos Salles and Visconde do Rio Branco. The game was at halftime when I saw the facade of the ice cream shop. Today is my day, the open doors announced. In addition to four men sitting at the table near the radio, there was one of the owners, who heard the request without forgetting to listen to the commentator.
Before finishing the lemon stick, I discovered that I was tuned to Cadeia Verde-Amarela, led by Radio Bandeirantes, and that the first half was broadcast by Pedro Luiz. Edson Leite would narrate the second, I learned on the next stick, again with lemon. Equally superb, the voice that was less fast and deeper than the other warned: “The 45 minutes that will decide Brazil’s fortunes in the World Cup are starting.” I ordered a pineapple cone, just for a change, I got up certain that the Cup was already ours and I looked like a champion when Pelé scored a great goal next to the city hall treasurer’s house, at the end of the first block of the road. return.
Also read: “Did you know? Zagallo coached the best team in history”
Zagallo pocketed it close to my kindergarten teacher’s jabuticaba tree. I wasn’t even fazed by Sweden’s second, scored in front of the mansion with a reputation for being haunted ─ in a blatant offside, I found out from Edson Leite. I decided to gain a few minutes to go home at the final whistle, but I didn’t even think about managing possession of the ball, that would only exist in the future, not in that June when it was about playing forward, or dribbling halfway around the world, and that’s why I decided take advantage of the lack of spectators to reproduce the best moves.
I left on the right like Garrincha at the corner, I realized that I had returned to the starting point after the fourth sprint, always on the right, and I thought it more logical to proceed without rushing. I overtook Doctor Luizinho Barbosa’s fishtail Chevrolet, covered the mayor’s black Mercury with a hat, headed the ball with Pelé at the front gate, celebrated the fifth goal with my hand on the doorknob and entered the room screaming. “Brazil!!!”
“The only one in the world who didn’t hear the game arrived”, mocked the older brother. “That fool doesn’t like football”, the other one grabbed my ankle again. I responded with praise for the quality of the ice cream and the voice of the two announcers, the detailed narration of the country’s five goals with football boots, a smile like a world champion and that sparkle in the eyes only granted to those who, listening to the radio, saw how the heroes played. from 1958.
Zagallo won trophies as a player, coach and technical coordinator | Photo: Reproduction/Instagram/@zagallooficial
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