On 3 July 1917, just months before the October Revolution, João Saldanha was born in Alegrete, in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul. A child of a different kind of revolution, he experienced the flames of class conflict first-hand during the uprising of 1923, which forced him and his family — at just six years old — to flee and resettle in Rivera, Uruguay, crossing to the other side of the border.
João was raised in this revolutionary spirit, drawing inspiration from the story of the United Provinces — the great Latin American coalition that resisted Spanish colonial rule. He returned to Brazil and to Rio in 1928, the year Getúlio Vargas was elected president. Blending football with a strong education, he studied Law and Journalism at the University of Brazil, all while playing professionally for Botafogo.
At Botafogo, Saldanha encountered the “patriarch” of Brazilian football — the Hungarian Dori Kürschner — and served as his assistant between 1939 and 1940. In 1944, he became the club’s head coach. However, between 1949 and 1956, he withdrew from football altogether, having gone underground. During those years, Saldanha became General Secretary of the Communist Youth League of Brazil, shaping its leftward turn and forging its connection with the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
His return to legal public life coincided with the beginning of his career as a sports journalist, where he quickly rose to prominence thanks to his direct experience with the world’s major football tournaments over the previous three decades.
In 1964, however, Brazil saw the rise of a military dictatorship under Branco, the armed forces commander who branded his coup d’état as a “revolution.” Saldanha was already known to the authorities for his political activity, but instead of being exiled or silenced, in 1969 he was appointed national team coach by João Havelange, then head of Brazil’s sports authority (and later FIFA president).
Saldanha now found himself at the helm of Brazil’s golden generation — a team cherished and heavily supported by the regime, as it symbolised its international showcase. Yet his vision of football was far ahead of its time.
Watching the evolution of the game in Europe and deeply impressed by the development of total football in the Netherlands, Saldanha set out to shape the Brazilian national team in a way that prioritised systems and spatial coverage — even if it meant managing the difficult coexistence of the country’s biggest stars within the starting eleven. He went as far as to commit what many saw as heresy: suggesting that even Pelé himself could be left out of the line-up.
His system worked during the qualifiers, with Brazil winning every match on the road to the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. However, Saldanha’s strong personality brought him into conflict with the very stars of the Brazilian squad, leading to his dismissal and replacement by Mário Zagallo.
Saldanha’s footballing prophecy would not be fulfilled in Mexico, where altitude and atmospheric conditions made high pressing unviable. Instead, the spontaneity of that team left behind footballing masterpieces — culminating in the iconic final at the Azteca against Italy. But his vision would prove prescient in the years that followed.
Brazil, having rejected Saldanha’s logic, would repeatedly pay the price for its aversion to structured football and its insistence on inspiration and improvisation. As a result, it even lost the affection and loyalty of its own people, who harshly criticised Brazilian teams that failed to win. This, in turn, did little to serve the interests of the ruling military regime. It would take many years for Brazil to reclaim its place at the summit of world football — and only after suffering monumental defeats, which, depending on one’s view, either marked the end of romantic football or its transition into the modern era.
After his spell with the national team, Saldanha returned to journalism, leaving behind brilliant quotes such as: “Brazilian football is something played to music.” In 1985, following the fall of the dictatorship, he ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro as the candidate of the Brazilian Communist Party.
A lifelong heavy smoker, João Saldanha breathed his last in Rome, on 12 July 1990 — just days after the World Cup final, which he had been covering for Brazilian television.
