Beckenbauer and Zagallo, footballing greats who attained excellence

It's a sad day in football when the beautiful game loses one of its brightest stars. It's tragic when it loses two in the space of a week.

News of the deaths of Franz Beckenbauer, aged 78, and Mario Zagallo at 92 is a time for sadness and reflection on the careers of two men with legitimate claims to having transformed the game.

Zagallo's death last week was felt from the vibrant streets of Rio de Janeiro to the bustling metropolis of Dubai. The first of only three men to win the World Cup as both player and coach – Beckenbauer was the second – Zagallo earned his place in history and was never shy of reminding people of it.

In his seminal book Brazil 1970 – How the Greatest Team of all time won the World Cup, Sam Kunti described how Zagallo would ignore his questions to instead self-indulge.

"He was full-on vain. Here was a man who had spent a lifetime cultivating his own place in history, a man who would tell you of his glories, and would never pass on a chance to be thanked for his own largesse," wrote Kunti.

As a player, Zagallo was talented but limited. Perhaps that's unkind when judging anyone playing in the same era as Pele, Garrincha and Didi but while others may have accepted their fate and remained happy to watch from the sidelines, Zagallo instead reinvented himself and analysed where Brazil's weaknesses lay.

The Selecao's commitment to attacking football is part of its DNA. Zagallo, a winger by trade, began to drill into anyone who would listen that wide players needed to drop back into midfield to reduce being exposed. It seems trivial now but at the time the idea of an attacking player dropping back to help out his midfielders or defenders was anathema to many Brazilians.

If Zagallo the player was the