In an interview with narrator Galvão Bueno on Monday night (23), on SBT, coach Carlo Ancelotti stated that he is confident about competing in the World Cup with the Brazilian team and that he should field four attackers in the tournament, following the national DNA.
“Due to the structure of the players we have, very good up front, we have to play with four strikers,” said the Italian. “I compare Brazilian football to Carnival. Carnival was new to me. I understood a lot of energy, a lot of joy, a lot of art, which is talent, and a lot of organization to organize all the cars with coordinated timing. So, all of this we have to put into the selection. The DNA of Brazil is very important, which is, obviously, talent, energy and joy.”
In the dispute for the four places in the starting team, the commander mentioned Vinícius Junior, Rafinha, Estevão and João Pedro, but stated that there are many others in the dispute. The number of good players is, according to him, one of the positive points of the selection.
“We have other players, but I think Vini will have a great World Cup. He can unbalance, but we have very good players up front, like Rafinha and Estevão. It’s not just one who can unbalance, we have a very strong team.”
Ancelotti also highlighted that he already has a group of 18 names defined for the world tournament. For the remaining vacancies, however, he said he had many doubts. This was the reason for him to call up eight new players for the friendlies against France and Croatia next Thursday (26) and Tuesday (31), respectively.
“We have a lot of doubts about the remaining places. That’s why I called players I don’t know,
for defense, in the middle and up front. The luck of the team is that it has players with a lot of quality, a lot of talent.”
Of the 26 athletes called up by the coach, the new ones are defenders Bremer (Juventus), Ibañez (Al Ahli) and Léo Pereira (Flamengo), midfielders Danilo (Botafogo) and Gabriel Sara (Galatasaray) and attackers Endrick (Lyon), Rayan (Bournemouth) and Igor Thiago (Brentford). Left-back Kaiki, from Cruzeiro, is another newcomer, but was called up after Flamengo’s Alex Sandro was cut due to injury.
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson also suffered an injury last week and was replaced by Corinthians’ Hugo Souza.
