This Friday, Tite will announce the squad for Brazil’s first games since November, World Cup qualifiers at home to Ecuador on June 4 and away to Paraguay on June 8. No word yet on when the Copa América or Olympic squads will be announced, but the Olympic team will be playing friendlies on the same dates, so expect Tite’s squad to make some concessions in that regard.

It’s been such a long, dark time since Brazil’s last games that it’s hard to have many specific wishes in mind about players to call, and with the Copa América almost immediately following the qualifiers, Tite might well get a do-over if someone he calls completely flops.

So here are a few questions bouncing around in my mind.

How’s the callup for the Copa América going to work? I am not clear on this, but it could be very important. With Brazil kicking off their Copa campaign six days after the Paraguay game, Globo’s report suggests that the squad will stay together during the interval. Will there be time for alterations? Will Tite have to call replacements from a designated list of reserves? Will he call up more than 23 players and then trim down? And obviously, this ties into most of the other questions I’m going to ask—knowing Tite, if he has to stick with his choices for these World Cup qualifiers into the Copa, he’s going to make the most frustratingly safe choices imaginable. Then Brazil’s going to stroll, without all that much trouble but unconvincingly, to another unbeaten Copa América triumph because of course.

Is Tite open to new options up top? It’s been a pretty blah year for Richarlison, Roberto Firmino, and especially Gabriel Jesus, the three players Tite has almost exclusively used as center forwards since the World Cup. Richarlison and Firmino did at least score several times in Brazil’s last games in October and November, even if neither was particularly convincing, but Gabriel Jesus doesn’t even have that going for him. Meanwhile, Gabigol and Pedro have scored a combined 66 goals for Flamengo since the start of 2020, and Pedro even made a brief, promising Seleção debut against Venezuela. Their differing styles mean each offers something unique. Toss a ball into an arbitrary spot around the penalty box, 1v1 with the goalkeeper, and of all our number 9 options, Gabigol’s the one you most want running onto that ball. By contrast, toss a ball into a heavily marked spot around the penalty box and Pedro’s probably the one you want on the end of it. Considering none of our regular options have been too good by either metric, the appeal is obvious.

Obviously, there’s a major question mark about whether they can step up to a much more difficult standard of football than they face in most club games in Brazil (especially since both have had failed stints at European clubs), but in my mind at least, there’s also a very real sense of “we’ve got to try something” at this point.

How firmly are some fading players still in Tite’s plans? Dani Alves just turned 38 and hasn’t featured in a Brazil squad since 2019, right around the time when he finally established himself as the game-changing right-back he should have been for most of the prior decade. Nobody has really stepped up to fill the void he left, and promising newcomers like Emerson Royal (anyone know how he got that nickname?) and Guga are more likely to feature for the Olympic squad this summer. Was his absence in 2020 just a temporary rest in the midst of a deadly pandemic, or has the sun really, finally set on Alves’ Seleção career? We may soon find out.

There’s also Philippe Coutinho, who Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman does not expect to recover from a knee injury by the end of the club season. While I expect this means he doesn’t have a prayer of featuring for Brazil this June, there is a part of me that wonders if Tite might call him up as a show of faith if his fitness is still in question, like how he’s done for Neymar on occasion. Which would be deeply dispiriting to the rest of us. Coutinho has not been particularly good for Brazil for a while now; it’s past time to at least be seriously looking at some alternatives, especially since Raphinha seems like such a good fit for that right-winger role if Tite ever wanted to revive the 4-1-4-1 that seemed to work better than the 4-3-3 he changed to by the 2018 World Cup.

Which U-23 players are unequivocal first-teamers? With the Olympics looming, Tite might figure it’s best to wait just a little while before incorporating some U-23 players into the first team, but it’s hard to imagine him letting go of any of the young players he deems essential. At this point, Gabriel Jesus, Richarlison, and Renan Lodi seem like locks to stay with the senior team, but beyond them, things get questionable. Does someone like Douglas Luiz, who was terrible against Venezuela and hasn’t been particularly inspiring in a slightly more defensive role for Aston Villa this term, continue to be the regular inclusion he was last year? What about Gabriel Menino, who seemed to have Tite’s favor at maybe Brazil’s least-competitive position, but still has yet to get his first Seleção cap? And on the flipside, what of Lucas Paquetá, who only made the squad last November as a last-minute injury replacement, but then made a game-changing substitute appearance and has since gone on to have a breakout season for Lyon?

Who would you call up, Zetona? Glad you asked. I honestly have not been paying as much attention as I should, especially to our most defensive players, but I’m gonna GO WITH MY GUT and what I understand about players’ form/injury status right now:

GKs: Alisson, Ederson, João Paulo. Look, the third-choice goalkeeper really doesn’t matter at this stage, so I might as well be a nepotist and give it to my dude at Santos. Also, I have to assume it would leave Santos without their star goalie at a crucial moment, which is just so fitting for the absolute mess of a season they’re having.

RBs: Emerson Royal, Danilo. Time for a land-reclamation program on the former Danilo Will Come Good Island. Gabriel Menino and Guga can hold the fort for the Olympic team.

CBs: Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Rodrigo Caio, Gabriel Magalhães. We’ve got a surfeit of promising U-23 center-backs, so I figured I’d give one of them a chance to hang with the first team. Problem is, I’m not really sure which of them is the best right now, so I’m going with Gabriel because he’s tall and because not playing for Arsenal right now would be a mercy. (EDITED TO ADD: I totally forgot about the existence of Éder Militão, who should definitely be ahead of Gabriel in the pecking order.)

LBs: Renan Lodi, Alex Telles. I know Alex Sandro is in better form than either of them, but I don’t think that should outweigh how bad he’s been almost every time he’s played for Brazil.

Holding midfielders: Casemiro, Fabinho, Arthur. Easiest position to fill.

Attacking midfielders: Lucas Paquetá, Claudinho, Rafinha Alcântara. Not having Coutinho as an inevitable starter is really liberating!

Wide Forwards: Neymar, Everton Cebolinha, Raphinha, Richarlison. We don’t really have a lot of fast wide forwards who are Seleção quality right now, so I reserve the right to swap Richarlison for, say, David Neres or Vinícius Júnior.

Strikers: Pedro, Gabigol. Fuck it, let’s go all-out with these two. If they don’t pan out, we can always bring Firmino and Jesus back in for the Copa América, and Pedro is eligible for the Olympics.