Mário Américo

Mario was born on July 28, 1912, in Monte Santo de Minas, a town in the interior of Minas Gerais.^[5][6] Mário left home at the age of eight and took a train to São Paulo to work as a shoeshine boy.^[5][7] In São Paulo, he worked as a drummer for orchestras after working as a mechanic in the Bixiga neighborhood and taking music lessons through social programs, but he faced legal problems because he was a minor and worked at night in bohemian circles.^[2][8]

Leaving his brief artistic career behind, he discovered boxing at a gym on Ladeira da Memória Street in downtown São Paulo, where he was trained by Argentine coach Aristides Jofre, father of Brazilian boxer Éder Jofre, and competed in a few fights in Rio de Janeiro in the lightweight division.^[2][6] He moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he had a decade-long career as a boxer, competing in both amateur and professional bouts.^[2][9]

In 1942, he enrolled in the physical education program at the National School of Physical Education, now the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).^[5] He went on to work as a massage therapist for several clubs in Rio de Janeiro, including Madureira and Vasco, and in São Paulo, Portuguesa.^[1][10][11]

As a member of the Brazilian national football team, he accompanied the team as its official massage therapist during seven FIFA World Cups, beginning with the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.^[12] He also served on the coaching staff for the 1954 FIFA World Cup, held in Switzerland and led by Zezé Moreira.^[7] At the 1958 FIFA World Cup, the first won by Brazil, held in Sweden, Américo worked once again as a masseur and secured the World Cup trophy.^[13] After Américo, when the final whistle blew, the referee was walking away with the ball under his arm.^[13] The national team's masseur punched the ball, grabbed it from the field, and ran off to the locker room.^[13] The ball is part of the collection at the Federação Paulista de Futebol (FPF) museum.^[13] At the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile, he repeated the feat and secured another ball for the Federation’s collection, in addition to playing a key role in the national team’s second consecutive World Cup title.^[5][13] He was also a member of the technical committee in 1966, at the tournament held in England.^[14] At the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, the Brazilian national team’s third victory, it marked the sixth World Cup in which Mario had participated.^[6] In 1974, at the FIFA World Cup held in West Germany, he participated in his seventh and final World Cup as a massage therapist for the Brazilian national team.^[2][15]

In the 1976 municipal election in São Paulo, he was elected city councilman as a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), an opposition party to the dictatorship, winning more than 31,000 votes.^[2][16] He ended his professional career by running a physical therapy clinic in the Imirim neighborhood, in the North Zone of São Paulo [pt].^[17][18] A unit at a public health clinic in the same neighborhood was named after Mário.^[18] He was played by actor Val Perré [pt] in the Netflix series Brazil 70: The Third Star, which premiered in 2026.^[19]

He had a collection of more than three thousand cups, which he kept in the places the teams visited.^[22]