Huge relief in Brazil and on the rest of the football planet, Mario Lobo Zagallo has been released from the hospital. Admitted for more than two weeks in treatment for a urinary tract infection, the 92-year-old former football star seems cured.
“Thank you all for your love, I’m back,” he said in a video posted to Instagram in which he is seen driving home in a wheelchair. “I’m stronger than ever, you’re going to have to support me!”, He added in the message that illustrates the video.
The man who made football history by becoming the first to win the World Cup as a player (1958 and 1962) and coach (1970) was hospitalized on August 15, according to the private clinic Barra d’Or from Rio de Janeiro.
A year ago, he was hospitalized for almost two weeks in a semi-intensive care unit in the same clinic in Rio, for a respiratory infection.
Former left winger, Zagallo was crowned world champion as a player alongside cracks like Pelé or Garrincha, in 1958 and 1962. The “Old wolf” was then coach of Brazil world champion in 1970, considered as the one of the best national teams of all time, with Pelé, Jairzinho, Tostao or Gerson.
Only two other personalities have won the World Cup as a player and coach, the German Franz Beckenbauer (1974 and 1990), and the Frenchman Didier Deschamps (1998 and 2018).