Top 60 Zico Quotes

There is nothing wrong in losing with dignity, it is a part of the game.

India has a population of over 1 billion people. There is place for all sports and for sure there is space for football.

When I can, I always like coming to Italy to have some nice wine.

When Brazil take part in any competition they must always play to win.

Being a soccer coach is just like being a general who has the responsibility of guiding his troops into battle. If a coach acts too emotionally on the bench, his players cannot focus on their game on the field.

In Brazil, U.S., Japan and some other countries, there are many sports being played and I hope that will be the case in India as well. Sports is good for the country.

I have always said that to manage Brazil I would have to be managing in Brazil first.

Everyone has the right to make mistakes.

Honestly speaking, I was not really interested in a managerial job when my playing career ended.

Brazilian football has always been very much admired in Japan and, of course, after my participation and so many other Brazilians, it was like they created a new style of play in homage to Brazilian football.

Rivaldo was fundamental for me accepting the challenge in Bunyodkor.

I’ve always seen football as a game. You lose or win.

I think the difference with Japan was that they didn’t bring in too many foreign players. In my opinion at the ISL it’s not too good to have too many foreigners playing. The minimum of five Indian players is too less in my opinion. Since it’s the ISL, we have to encourage more Indian football.

In life we always have to learn something, I learn everything daily.

Ozil is a great player. He’s the brain of the German national team.

An athlete needs to maintain a proper diet.

Pele has all the qualities and characteristic that a football player has to have.

I don’t believe that politics has to be part of the sporting world.

My father taught me to love Flamengo, which has always been my second home.

My only dream was to wear the number ten shirt of Flamengo. Since then I have just taken things as they have come to me.

If you want to try new challenges you have to adapt.

During practice sessions I try and bring every inch of my experience to show the players what to expect, what can happen, what to avoid so that the team can focus on what they have learnt during training sessions.

I am not a magician of football.

Sometimes a team plays very well but doesn’t manage to score, while another team comes and scores. But then, that’s how football is.

I hope that all the Indian football players who will be with me under my coaching will show their talent and come out with great success.

I don’t think Pele was the ultimate hero for our generation, he is the ultimate hero of every generation of Brazilians.

My philosophy is always to play for a win.

A great player can win, but cannot claim titles alone. You need to have a great team who are close and able to support you.

When I went to Japan, I was with Kashima Antlers. Very good results were produced with that team as I aimed to develop Japanese football.

Difficulty is when you go to a place where the people don’t like you, they put a burden on you like what happened to me in Olympiakos.

Others are others, Pele is Pele, he is totally different.

Football is a collective sport and many times it doesn’t depend on you playing well. It depends if the team is playing well.

It’s hard for me to get to grips with how much players have changed since I retired. There are too many annoying habits; the kids are getting rich earlier and earlier, which brings a weird sense of entitlement.

I want my players to go win and don’t play bad football.

I always play players who are fit – even if it means playing out of position.

I liked it when people relied on me… because then I knew I had something different to offer.

When God built Pele, he put everything that a player needs in him. He knew how to shoot, how to dribble, how to head, be physical. He had everything that a football player needs to have. It’s difficult for someone to achieve what he has in football.

Football never surpises me.

With respect to Qatar as a country that wants to grow, you can’t have a World Cup in a country that doesn’t have football.

In my days, players were only thinking about publicity during holiday and on rest days.

I’ve learned that showing your emotions can work against you and that you need to have a business-like attitude to observe things with a cool head.

Neymar and Balotelli have the same problem. They spend too much time on their activities off the pitch.

When you hear cheers at the moment you need a bit of a push, players can react to that and perform at their best.

Brazilian boys as young as 14 and 15 are now based in Europe. They spend their best years in Europe and come back to Brazil when they are past their prime. This has destroyed local clubs and championships.

For me, the 1982 Brazil squad was the best, although we could not win the World Cup.

A lot of people talk about what the 1982 team did on the pitch but that side was so dear to Brazilian fans also because it featured players that supporters would see in flesh and bone on a regular basis, either at games or even on the streets. Now they basically only see the Selecao on the TV.

The history of Brazil goes from Pele to Garrincha, Didi, Tostao, Gerson, then to all of us who followed them.

Maradona has done a lot for his clubs, as Messi does, and for the Argentina national team.

In my career I always tried to improve to become one of the great players, because I felt I had received a gift from God and I had to make good use of it, to become worthy of having received this talent.

Losing a game at home is never good.

It is always good to keep learning. Every day things change and we should recycle ourselves every day.

I might have made mistakes but I have always been honest.

I don’t believe in luck.

In football, everything is possible.

My grandfather is a musician, my son is a musician and a singer. My mother played the piano too.

I am not White Pele. I am simply Zico.

Maradona is among the best five players I’ve ever seen: Garrincha, Pele, Diego, Cruijff and Beckenbauer.

My philosophy is always to play forward because goal is the reason of football.

In Japan, when I went there, there was no professionalism at all. But the biggest advantage was that everyone was united and wanted to progress from amateur football to professional.

I’ve been through everything in soccer.