The Total trinity

Footballing greats Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer leave an enduring legacy, revolutionising the game's tactics and shaping its modern era

Brazil’s Mario Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer who died within days of each other this month, were more than just record holders. As two of the three managers who won the World Cup as player and manager (55-year-old Didier Deschamps being the third), they are assured a prominent place in the pantheon of footballing greats. But in footballing heaven — the existence of which every fan, even atheist ones, can confirm — Zagallo, 92, and Beckenbauer, 78, join Johan Cruyff, who died in 2016 at the ridiculously young age of 68, as the trinity of strategic and tactical greats whose