On Thursday, February 28th, Tite will call up players for Brazil’s friendly games against Panama on March 23 and the Czech Republic on March 26. Ahead of that, here’s a status report on the players in contention for a spot:

Likely or Possible Absences

Neymar re-injured the metatarsal he fractured in the lead-up to last year’s World Cup, which will keep him out until the start of April.

Pedro is nearing a return from the cruciate ligament injury that cruelly robbed him of a spot in Brazil’s first post-World Cup squad, but it won’t quite come soon enough to put him in the conversation for this round of games.

Arthur suffered a hamstring injury a couple weeks back, though he is already back training.

Marcelo has had injury problems all season, which have kept him out of Tite’s recent callups, and more recently his weight and lack of form have caused problems at Real Madrid, where he seems to have lost his starting role.

Douglas Costa enjoyed the best season of his career in 2017-18, but the arrival of some guy named after Ronald Reagan has consigned him to playing garbage minutes off the bench. Costa totaled 20 goal involvements last year; more than halfway through this one, he has just three. He’s currently sidelined with an unspecified muscle injury, and Tite’s right-hand man Cléber Xavier said he won’t be available.

Likely Inclusions

Tite all-but guaranteed that two players would make their return after being excluded from recent squads. One is Lucas Paquetá, who appeared in the September friendlies but was left out of subsequent games at the request of his club Flamengo. The other would have been Fernandinho; while he hasn’t been called up for Brazil since the World Cup, Tite has repeatedly praised him in interviews and even vowed that he would return to the fold. However, his injury in the Carabao Cup final will likely keep him out.

One other name seems almost certain to bust its way onto the list. Vinícius Júnior is enjoying a breakout winter for a rebuilding Real Madrid side, becoming the first teenager to play in El Clásico in at least a decade and making game-changing contributions for the Champions League holders, all at the age of 18. Tite’s staff have recently scouted him in person, and with Neymar out, there’s a decent argument that VJ will be the player who most deserves to start on the left wing in his absence.

In The Realm Of Possibility

Felipe Anderson’s impressive season for West Ham got the attention of Tite’s staff, who watched him in person against Liverpool a few weeks ago. That display apparently impressed them enough to warrant a second viewing, against Fulham last Friday, where he was fairly anonymous. Anderson’s had a very good first season in England, and is undoubtedly closer to the sort of skill set Brazil needs right now than other wingers like Douglas Costa or Willian: he combines great speed and athleticism with solid dribbling ability, some of the best long shooting of any Brazilian winger in the conversation, and vision and passing ability that nobody but Neymar can match right now. That said, though he can play on both wings, he’s mostly played on the left in England, which might substantially hurt his chances of inclusion: Neymar is obviously untouchable in that position, but I’d have to imagine that Coutinho, Richarlison, and maybe even Vinicius Júnior (I can find no consensus on where the accents should be placed in his name, so I’m just going to use a different combination every time) might all be ahead of him in the pecking order.

Still, if there’s ever a time to give untested wingers in good form a shot, it’s now. Neymar is out, and the current form of just about every other option at winger—Coutinho, Richarlison, Lucas Moura, Douglas Costa, Malcom—ranges from “ehh” to “oh no”. That might be enough to warrant bringing in both Anderson and Vinicius Junior.

Another option is David Neres, who lights up the pitch every time Ajax’s coach lets him onto the field (and was light-years ahead of his teammates in their Champions League loss to Bayern). Despite some attention from Tite in the past, he’s never been called up, but Cléber Xavier implied that he’s one of the players the staff is looking at to replace Neymar (along with Richarlison, who’s sure to be called regardless; Everton, who could return after featuring in the September friendlies; and Vinícius Junior).

Dani Alves is back playing after overcoming the injury that took him out of the World Cup, and with Brazil still in desperate need of some decent right-backs, there’s a reasonable chance he makes his return to the fold. But he’s 36, just came back from a serious injury, and since his return he’s been playing almost exclusively in midfield for PSG—a place where, for once, Brazil has plenty of personnel already.

It’s not obvious who Tite favors at the moment for that right-back spot, and it’s possible we’ll see a major surprise from the Brazilian league. It is worth noting, however, that his staff recently scouted Corinthians, perhaps to watch Fagner, whom I think we’d all rather see the back of. Danilo and Fabinho have been the recent favorites in the position, but given the form Éder Militão is in for Porto, and the fact that he can also play at center-back, another problem position for Brazil, it’s hard to see him not making a return. The biggest question is why he was left out of the last round of friendlies in the first place.

Outside Looking In

A few players just can’t seem to get a look for Brazil, no matter how well they play. Dudu has been arguably the best player in the Brazilian league for at least a year, and he scored the winning goal in the only game he played under Tite, but there’s no indication that he’ll ever receive a call. Luan has been regularly passed over even as teammates like Arthur, Geromel, and Everton get called up. In Europe, Willian José has six goals and three assists in his last eight games, including game-winning contributions against Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, but he doesn’t seem to be on the radar at all. I had David Neres in this list too, before seeing that one of Tite’s staff had specifically mentioned him as a possibility.

Regulars In Great Form

Recent regulars for Brazil nonetheless playing exceptionally well right now.

Marquinhos has been arguably the standout Brazilian of the past month. PSG coach Thomas Tuchel has, by necessity, deployed him as a defensive midfielder for much of the season, and after a rocky start, he has recently begun to really excel in the position and show off just how exceptional his passing game is. Look at what he did against Manchester United!

Gabriel Jesus already has nine goals and three assists in 2019, which is especially impressive given that he only started five of the ten games he’s played in the new year. That being said, his stats are substantially padded by games against lower-league sides; five of his goals and all three assists came against second-, third-, and even fourth-tier sides in cup competitions, and it’s hard to argue that he’s genuinely turned the corner after a subpar 2018 when he has yet to consistently produce that sort of form in more important games. It also doesn’t help that Sergio Aguero (11 goals in 2019) is handily outplaying him, limiting his chances to start in big games. But as far as the “who’s scoring the most goals right now?” argument goes, he has both Roberto Firmino and Richarlison handily beaten. Whether that should translate into a starting spot, especially since it’s not yet clear whether he can reclaim this form once he recovers from injury, is another matter.

Willian has three goals and four assists in his last ten games, which if nothing else is sure to keep him in the squad. But the games in which he’s scored really make evident a trend that some of us have noted for a while. All of those goal involvements came against easy opposition—two goals against second-tier Sheffield Wednesday, three assists in two games against Malmö, who finished third in the Swedish league last year. He was nowhere in Chelsea’s tougher games and embarrassing defeats, but it’s perhaps notable that he barely even played in most of them. He came on as a sub in the losses to Tottenham, Bournemouth, and Manchester United, and never saw the pitch in the 6-0 drubbing to Manchester City. It seems like maybe Willian has lost manager Maurizio Sarri’s trust to make a difference in big games (though he played the entirety of normal time in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday). And really, that’s what Brazil fans have been saying for a while.

Regulars In Bad Form

Guys who should be a lock to make the squad despite not playing very well or very much.

Philippe Coutinho is in a rut at Barcelona. Since returning from Brazil’s last friendlies back in November, he has three goals and one assist in 20 games, a marked drop-off even from the first three months of the season. To my eye, he seems to have become too one-dimensional, relying ever more on his ability to cut in from the left and curl a shot into the top corner. But when that’s not working, he seems to run out of ideas.

Richarlison’s bright start to the season has cooled off over the past two months, with only two goals since the new year. It’s hard to determine how much of this is personal—a loss of form, the same sort of burnout that also hit him around this point in his first season in England—and how much is due to the dreadful current state of his team. Everton has only won four of its last 16 games, and drawn only two others. Richarlison scored in four of the six games where the team earned a point. It might be that once the rest of the team gets out of its current misery, his form will bounce back.

Miranda has quietly but definitively entered the twilight of his career this season. Without any major injury problems, he’s only started about a third of Inter Milan’s games this season. The Copa América increasingly looks like it could be his swan song on the international stage.

Other Questions Worth Monitoring

Who will play defensive midfield? Arguably the biggest mistake Tite made in his World Cup squad was not selecting a true like-for-like backup for Casemiro, thinking that Fernandinho could anchor the midfield on his own. (Which he can, when he plays for Manchester City, whose system offers him far more protection than does Brazil’s.) If Fernandinho returns, it’ll be worth watching whether Tite calls up any other defensive midfielders. Walace has earned the nod a couple of times, while Fabinho can play the role if he isn’t being deployed at right-back. Allan is another potential option, and Marquinhos has recently shown how well he can play at the base of the midfield. Keep an eye on not just who Tite calls up, but also what he says about who he considers an option in the position.

Domestic surprises? Tite and his staff recently attended several games in the Brazilian state championships, watching Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco da Gama, Cruzeiro, São Paulo, and Corinthians. I don’t have any idea who, specifically, they went to watch. There are certainly several players on those teams who’ve been called up recently, like Cássio, Dedé, Fagner, and Diego Ribas, but they also contain more exciting and left-field possibilities like Gabigol and Éverton Ribeiro, as well as relics who should be left in the past like Hernanes. There’s also the question of why the staff went to watch these teams but not Palmeiras or Grêmio, probably the two squads with the largest number of Seleção-worthy players right now? On this point, I can’t even pretend to know Tite’s thinking. We’ll just have to wait and be surprised on callup day.

What havoc will injuries wreak? Several notable players injured themselves over this past week, potentially throwing a further spanner in Tite’s plans. Notably, both Roberto Firmino and Gabriel Jesus were either subbed off or left out of games entirely due to injury. Both seem likely to recover in time, but it raises the specter of one of them missing out. In that case, Tite could deputize a wide forward like Richarlison up front, though he might prefer to play him in Neymar’s spot instead, which could open the door to an entirely new face. I’ve said repeatedly that his system seems to want a more physical target man like Willian José; perhaps this is the opportunity to bring one in.

There’s also the Fernandinho issue. I have to imagine Tite was planning to incorporate him, so if he has to miss out, that’s a hole re-opened in midfield. Again, I’m on Team Play Fabinho In His Favorite Position, but there are darker possibilities. Renato Augusto and (sigh) Paulinho are always a threat to once again return, though I’m hoping their lack of match fitness (the Chinese league starts up this coming weekend, meaning they’ll have to shake off four months of rust in three weeks) will work against them.

Any other new faces? Cléber Xavier suggested that Tite will only call up one or two players he’s never called before. One of these, surely, will be Vinícius Júnior; Felipe Anderson and David Neres are the only other newcomers who seem to have a legitimate shot of breaking in to the lineup at this point. However, this doesn’t take into account the latest injury developments, which could open up one or two new spots.