Brazil '70: The Third Star

They restaged Carlos Alberto on a Sao Paulo pitch. Then Tostao called the locker room fake.

VEJA watched Netflix rebuild June 21, 1970 on the grass at Estadio Niteroi. Actors who are also athletes ran the Italy final until Pelé, Gérson, Jairzinho, and Carlos Alberto Torres's famous goal looked like a ballet for cameras. Director Paulo Morelli told the magazine he wanted the yellow jersey back as a symbol of football, with the 2026 World Cup coming and the current Seleção looking like a riddle. Five episodes. May 29, 2026. O2 Filmes, the house behind City of God. Netflix had announced the fictional miniseries on February 25, 2025, with father-and-son directors Paulo and Pedro Morelli plus creators Naná Xavier and Rafael Dornellas. Filming in Brazil and Mexico. latestnetflix.com's view is that Classic plays restaged rather than left to archive dust.,

Then the man who actually wore the No. 9 opened his Folha column.

A champion in the press box.

Tostao praised the recreations and the acting, then cut the invented dressing-room drama. "The pressure from Pelé and other players for Zagallo to start me was not explicit the way the series shows," he wrote. If there was pressure, it was silent, in glances and talks at the ear. Gérson, who had played for Zagallo at Botafogo, did the talking. Tostao said he did not walk up to Zagallo and demand a starting place. He also objected to the Pelé on screen. Unlike what is shown, he wrote, Pelé was a conscientious, balanced, good-humored, and emotionally very strong athlete. The series, he concluded, is well made and exciting, "but there are many invented and sensationalist scenes meant to dramatize a great sporting achievement."

The directors had already confessed the invention. At a Palmeiras stadium launch, Folha asked Paulo Morelli if dialogues and scenes were made up. "Yes, a little, yes," he said. They do not know the original locker-room lines. They recreated them, imagined scenes, and claimed they stayed close to reality. That hedge is standard for a docudrama. It sounds different when the real Tostao is still filing Saturday copy.

Zagallo almost went to someone else.

O Globo had Marcelo Serrado in the mix for Zagallo in May 2025. Negotiations did not hold. Bruno Mazzeo got the job in July, his second streaming role after leaving TV Globo. Mazzeo told VEJA that Zagallo arrives insecure, needing the consecrated players to believe him because nobody respected tactics. Rodrigo Santoro plays João Saldanha, the Communist-linked coach who qualified the side and then lost the job before Mexico. Lucas Agrícola, an actor-athlete with a startling likeness, plays Pelé. He told VEJA the "drible da vaca" against Uruguay took many attempts, and that the set erupted when it finally landed. , ,

Netflix Brasil's making-of reel talks about two months of rehearsal on a real pitch, physical prep, physiotherapy, more than 8,000 extras between Brazil and Mexico, and more than 100 player looks. Quico Meirelles directed episodes alongside the Morellis. The yellow shirts are perfect. The argument is about the men inside them, and about a dictatorship backdrop the series will not leave on the sideline. The official teaser still sells the shirt numbers. Tostao sold the correction. , ,