Zito (soccer player)

Zito
Zito (2008)
Personnel
Surname	José Ely de Miranda
birthday	August 8, 1932
place of birth	Roseira ,  Brazil
size	179 cm
position	midfield
Juniors
Years	station
1948-1951	EC Taubaté
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1952-1967	FC Santos	727 (57)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1955-1966	Brazil	52 0(3)
1 Only league games are given.

José Ely de Miranda , better known by his nickname Zito , (born August 8, 1932 in Roseira , São Paulo , † June 14, 2015 in Santos , São Paulo) was a Brazilian football player and manager of Santos FC . With the Brazilian national team he was world champion in 1958 and 1962. In addition, the defensive midfielder was captain of the team from Santos, which dominated the stadiums of the world in the early 1960s.

Life

Zito (a short form of José) was born in Roseira , a small town in the valley of the Rio Paraíba do Sul in the east of the state of São Paulo , in 1932 as the son of a shopkeeper. As part of his training, 16-year-old Zito moved to the neighboring Taubaté , where he joined the local football club. He impressed with the amateur club EC Taubaté and already had an offer from the capital's Palmeiras São Paulo club , but in 1952 he followed an offer from Santos FC , the 1935 state champion of São Paulo , to the port city. He soon felt so at home there that he himself became a member of the association in February 1953.

First successes in Santos

Immediately he made himself irreplaceable as a central defensive player in midfield. There he controlled the game and the pace of the team and became the extended arm of coach Lula on the field. In 1955 and 1956, Santos won the São Paulo state championship and Zito won his first title. In addition, Zito made his debut in November 1955 in the Estádio Pacaembu of São Paulo against Paraguay as a substitute in the national team. In January 1956 he came under coach Osvaldo Brandão in a game of the Copa America 1956 in Uruguay, where Brazil was disappointing fourth. This also called him to the Copa America 1957 in Peru, where Brazil finished second this time. But Zito only came here to play as a substitute.

Brazil 1958: Vicente Feola (coach), Djalma Santos, Zito, Bellini, Nilton Santos, Orlando, Gilmar - Garrincha, Didi, Pelé, Vava, Zagallo.

Under the new national team coach Vicente Feola Zito was also in the squad for the 1958 FIFA World Cup added to Sweden, where he only in the third, decisive for the next round group match against the same number of points belonging to favorites Soviet Union with the famous goalkeeper Lev Yashin was used . Zito remained in the team until the final - on the way there the Seleção eliminated Wales, who had to compete without their injured star John Charles , and France with the then miracle striker Just Fontaine . There, Brazil, with unforgettable players such as Garrincha , Djalma and Nílton Santos , Didi , Vavá and the new star Pelé, won the world championship for the first time with a 5-2 win against hosts Sweden.

At the end of the year he won the national championship again with Santos, with Pelé setting an all-time record with 58 goals in 38 games, and in 1959 also the Torneio Rio-São Paulo , which was extremely valuable at the time, in the absence of a national soccer competition, with the best teams of the two States. He was also a regular at the 1959 Copa America in Argentina , where Brazil finished second behind the hosts. By the end of the year, Santos FC also made it into the final of Brazil's first national competition, the Taça Brasil , the Brazil Cup . In the finals against EC Bahia in December , both clubs won once and Bahia won 3-1 in the decider , which was only played in the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in March 1960 .

On the other hand, Santos won the state championship again in 1960. In 1961, Santos FC won the Taça Brasil for the third time on the third attempt under the nickname Gerentor ("Manager"), who was the captain , who often knew how to put the strikers Pelé and Coutinho in the limelight with clever passes after a 1: 1 in the first leg with 5: 1 against EC Bahia. This qualified the fish, as the footballers of Santos are also called, for the Copa Libertadores 1962 .

Flood of titles in 1962 and 1963

There Santos advanced to the final against the Uruguayan defending champion CA Peñarol . In Montevideo, Brazilians won 2-1 with two goals from Coutinho . The legendary Ecuadorian striker Alberto Spencer scored for the Uruguayans. He also scored twice in Santos, where Peñarol turned the tables with a 3-2 win. In the due playoff in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires , Santos was too strong for the Uruguayans, won 3-0 with two goals from Pelé and thus won the club's first international title. In September and October, the final of the World Cup against the winner of the European Cup of National Champions Benfica Lisbon took place. After Santos presented 3-2 in the first leg in the Maracanã in Rio, the Portuguese around stars like Eusébio and Mário Coluna had no chance in the second leg and went down 5-2 in Lisbon. Until five minutes before the end, the fish were even 5-0 ahead.

In April of that year Santos had already defended the Taça Brasil and in December the third success in a row at the national championship followed. So the Santos FC won all four competitions in which he had competed; at the Rio-São Paulo, which had already visibly lost its importance, the fish did not compete.

But Zito was able to celebrate another even bigger success in the middle of the year: the world title of 1962 . At the tournament in Chile he was part of the regular formation of Brazil and took part in all games. In the final, Czechoslovakia took the lead after 15 minutes through Josef Masopust , European Footballer of the Year that year , but Amarildo , who replaced Pelé, who was injured early in the tournament, equalized just two minutes later. It was not until the 69th minute before Zito headed the Brazilians onto the road to victory after a cross from Amarildo. With twelve minutes to go, Vavá increased it to 3-1, securing Brazil's title defense, the second and so far last in the history of the World Cup.

1963 was another year of triumphs for Santos FC. Already in March, the club won in Rio-São Paulo and also the third win at Taça Brasil in a row. Again Santos met EC Bahia in the final, but this time won with 6: 0 and 2: 0. In the finals of the Copa Libertadores 1963 in September, Santos defeated the Argentine champions CA Boca Juniors 3: 2 and 2: 1 and was able to repeat the success of the previous year. This time in October, AC Milan was the European representative. This took place with the Brazilian world champions of 1958 and 1962 José Altafini and Amarildo as well as Gianni Rivera as midfield conductors and won 4-2 at home in a game that became notorious as Batalha de Milão ("Battle of Milan"). In the second leg in November in front of 150,000 spectators in the Maracanã of Rio this time Santos won 4-2 without the injured Zito, Calvet and the two-time goalscorer Pele. In the play-off again, which was played hard two days later, in the same place, Santos, still weakened as a replacement, won 1-0 with a penalty goal. Santos defender Ismael and Italian Cesare Maldini , father of Paolo Maldini , were sent off the field. With four more titles, the relatively poor performance at the state championship - a knocked-off third - was not significant.

In 1964, Santos was eliminated from the Libertadores against the winner, the Bonaren suburban club CA Independiente, with two defeats in the semi-finals. Nationally, however, the troika of Taça Brasil, the Torneio Rio-São Paulo and the state championship could be won for the first time. Even in 1965, the now somewhat aging team in the Libertadores did not get beyond the semi-finals, where this time Peñarol retained the upper hand in the extension of the play-off. Nationally, the Pisces defeated CR Vasco da Gama in the final of the Taça Brasil with 5: 1 and 1: 0 and thus won the title five times in a row.

1966 followed another win of the Rio-São Paulo and Zito was appointed to the squad of the national team for the soccer world championship in England. In June, Zito played his 40th and last international match in a 1-1 draw in the preparatory game against Scotland. Brazil was eliminated in the preliminary round of the World Cup and Zito was not used. In 1967 he won his ninth national championship in São Paulo and ended his playing career. In his 15 years with the club, he won a total of 22 titles with the club. At Santos, Clodoaldo inherited his jersey with the number 5 , who became world champion with Brazil in 1970 in Mexico.

Football director at Santos

In later years he was appointed football director at Santos FC, a position he held until December 2009. The Santos championships in 2002 and 2004 - the club's first national titles since 1965 - as well as the national championships in 2006 and 2007 also fell during this period . Stars like Robinho and the meanwhile Bremen Diego and later Neymar joined the club at that time out.

Today the stadium in his hometown Roseira is named after him and on the occasion of the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 he had the honor of being the first torchbearer in Santos. In addition, a prestigious amateur football tournament, the Copa Zito , has been named after him since 1994 .

He had three daughters and a son José Ely, who is also involved with Santos FC these days.

title

• Football World Cup : 1958, 1962

• World Cup : 1962, 1963
• Copa Libertadores : 1962 , 1963

• Taça Brasil : 1961 , 1962 , 1963 , 1964 , 1965
• Torneio Rio-São Paulo : 1959, 1963, 1964, 1966
• São Paulo State Championship : 1955, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1967

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brazil and Neymar mourn ex-world champion Zito
2. ↑ Brazil mourns World Cup hero Zito , on sport1.de. Retrieved June 15, 2015

Web links

• Zito ( Memento from September 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• http://terceirotempo.ig.com.br/quefimlevou_interna.php?id=3437&sessao=f&pagina=2 (link not available)