Zé Maria has worked with Ancelotti, Adriano, Ronaldo, Romário, Mancini, Mourinho and more – and he has stories to tell
By Joshua Law for Yellow & Green Football
Zé Maria has some stories to tell. So many, in fact, that it takes three video calls over two days (and a lot of patience on his part) to even scratch the surface. Over the last 30 years, he has been from the bottom of world
Football to the top and back again, stopping on every step in between and at quite a few places around the edges.
There are tales from his playing days: memories of Carlo Ancelotti, Fabio Cannavaro and Lilian Thuram at Parma; recollections of Roberto Mancini, Adriano and Luís Figo at Inter; stories of Mário Zagallo, Ronaldo and Romário Romario with
Brazil. Then there are the times spent as a manager in Kenya, in a remote Romanian ski resort and the Albanian second tier. There are thoughts on the current state of football and on the barriers he faces as a black coach trying to take his career to the next level.