92-year-old Brazilian soccer legend Mario Zagallo was hospitalized in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday due to a urinary tract infection. Doctors said that the condition of the former striker, national coach, assistant national coach and sports director of the Brazilian national football team is currently stable. Last year, Zagallo ended up in the same Para d’Or hospital with a respiratory infection.
Doctors currently treating Zagallo said: “His condition is stable at the moment. He is conscious and thinking clearly. He is not on artificial respiration.”
Zagallo is a former teammate of Pele and Garrincha, among others, and an important figure in the history of Brazilian football. He won world championships as a player (1958 and 1962) and as a national coach (1970). Zagallo was the first to achieve this. Only French Didier Deschamps (1998 and 2018) and German Franz Beckenbauer (1974 and 1990) have done so.
During the 1994 World Cup in the United States, where Brazil won its fourth world title, he was an assistant to the national coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira. Zagallo was Brazil’s coach from 1994 to 1998, but retired after losing in the World Cup final to host France in 1998.
