After Zagallo's death, the strong phrase that involves Lionel Messi and Pelé

After the death of Pelé in the middle of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, Brazil suffered another painful physical loss in the last hours, that of Mario Zagallo, who died at the age of 92 and the official Instagram account of the Brazilian legend was the one that confirmed the news in the last hours. The salient fact about him was that he is the only four-time world champion in the history of soccer because he won it twice as a player, once as a coach and once as a technical coordinator.

Regarding his recent past, when he was already retired, Infobae published a note in 2017 about a comparison he made between Lionel Messi and O Rei Pelé, partly defending the Argentine and highly praising the Brazilian icon. But he agreed on one thing and that was that the two were among the best footballers on the planet throughout the history of the beautiful game.

"Today Messi is the best in the world, but there was only one Pelé. The Argentine is the most outstanding in the world for what he did and does at Barcelona but, please, don't compare him to Pelé.... There will never be another who scores 1281 goals in his career". And he added: "Messi still hasn't won a World Cup with his national team.... That elevates the category of a player". After some time, O Rei, like Diego Armando Maradona, has already passed on to a better life and now it is the turn of the player whose middle name is Lobo.

Fervent desire to see his country become world champions at home cut short

Finally, prior to the 2014 World Cup, which was held in the neighboring country for the second time in his footballing life, Mario had confessed that he did not see Messi doing the Olympic lap at the mythical Maracana Stadium (he was right by little or nothing), since his nation was the one that was going to be crowned: "We will win it any way we can, in any way, because it would be unacceptable to lose two World Cups at home". But Germany scored seven goals in the semifinals.