30/01/09
Interview with Mauro Galvão
Leonardo Filipo

In the end of 2008, Mauro Galvão talked to ZNR and he was waiting for a proposal to follow his coach career, started in Vasco in 2003 with passages for Botafogo, Náutico and Vila Nova. Calm as he was as a defender, one of Brazil´s best defender by the way, the ex-player was not in a hurry to decide his future.

When 2009 started, a new and challenged proposal came to him. Mauro Galvão accepted the invitation to be Grêmio´s executive director, the Porto Alegre team where he was an idol. The team will be in the Libertadores, the South-American Champions League, this year. He talked to ZNR about the coach job, Vasco´s relegation, the times when he faced Zico and the best defensive players of Brazil.

The fact that you have been a great player generates a great expectation in your work as a coach?

People expect always the best from me. Sometimes, however, the club is not able to give you a good work condition. So I came to a dilemma. But I´m very calm and I had positive experiences already. The best thing that can happen to a manager is having an international proposal. You have the time you need, a contract and you can develop your work with tranquility. There is a respect for the football professional. In Brazil, it´s more difficult because the results are more important than the work in development.

How do you evaluate your work as a coach?

It was relatively good. I was assistant coach for Antônio Lopes in Vasco in 2003 when I was promoted to manager. We were in 14th place in the Brasileirão, the Brazilian national championship, with 24 participants. It is not easy to take a team in the middle of the season but it was an valuable experience. So I went to Botafogo, another club that I defended when I was a player. I believe that it would be more interesting to get a team in the season´s beginning, an experience that I did not have yet.


Mauro Galvão in Brazil national team: two World Cups, an Olympic games and a title in the America Cup 89

Vasco was relegated to second division in the last Brasileirão, a club where you was an idol. How did you receive the news?

Vasco is not disputing the Brazilian title for a while; the team only participates in the championships. This a reason for the relegation. The club has a different form to do politics, it´s complicated. The club was divided in two groups. The new management should enter in December and not in the middle of the season as it happened. It´s a kind of emptiness that nobody really knows who is in charge. So they changed coaches twice. All of it is an invitation to be relegated. The players lost focus in a championship as difficult as the Brasileirão. I´m not saying that a management is better than the other but the changes must happen in the end of the year.

How was facing Zico in the field?

I played against him when I was in Internacional and Botafogo and he gave me a lot of headache. He scored and he gave decisive passes. Zico is a great player as Platini, Zidane and Ronaldo. I´m a fan. In 1986, we were together in Brazil national team for the World Cup and I saw his effort to recover and play the tournament. I did not distinguish the player from the man. I am always the same person everywhere. And Zico is a great example for all of us. Children need to see people as Zico, Roberto Dinamite and Falcão.

Who is today´s "Mauro Galvão", the Brazilian best defensive player?

Thiago Silva and Juan. They are good representatives of Brazilian defenders.


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