I meant to have some post up sooner than now.

We’re now less than a week three days away from Brazil’s first game at the World Cup, when those of us based in the US will be faced with the hard choice between celebrating Thanksgiving and watching the Seleção take on Serbia. In my head, I wanted to have already written a post responding to Tite’s final squad selection and use this as more of a preview / “what are our chances?” post ahead of that game. Unfortunately, I moved last week, and that kind of took up most of my time.

Anyways, here’s Brazil’s squad for the World Cup. It is still—knock on fucking wood—unchanged since Tite announced it on November 7th. While other teams are seeing star players drop like flies, thus far (keeps pounding on wood) nobody in this actually quite good squad has yet been cut due to injury:

GOALKEEPERS

Alisson – Liverpool (ENG)

Ederson – Manchester City (ENG)

Weverton – Palmeiras (BRA)

FULLBACKS

Alex Sandro – Juventus (ITA)

Alex Telles – Sevilla (ESP)

Dani Alves – Pumas (MEX)

Danilo – Juventus (ITA)

CENTER-BACKS

Bremer – Juventus (ITA)

Éder Militão – Real Madrid (ESP)

Marquinhos – Paris Saint Germain (FRA)

Thiago Silva – Chelsea (ENG)

MIDFIELDERS

Bruno Guimarães – Newcastle (ENG)

Casemiro – Manchester United (ENG)

Everton Ribeiro – Flamengo (BRA)

Fabinho – Liverpool (ENG)

Fred – Manchester United (ENG)

Lucas Paquetá – West Ham United (ING)

FORWARDS

Antony – Manchester United (ENG)

Gabriel Jesus – Arsenal (ENG)

Gabriel Martinelli – Arsenal (ENG)

Neymar Jr. – Paris Saint Germain (FRA)

Pedro – Flamengo (BRA)

Raphinha – Barcelona (ESP)

Richarlison – Tottenham (ENG)

Rodrygo – Real Madrid (ESP)

Vinicius Jr. – Real Madrid (ESP)

Breaking Down The Squad

I wrote what was intended to be a separate post about how this squad compares to Brazil’s recent World Cup teams, much as I did before the 2018 World Cup, an article lost in that year’s infamous site crash. I’m going to start with that before talking about our path to the trophy.

So: is it a good list?

If there’s one place where this squad unequivocally shines, it’s this: no World Cup squad in my time following this team closely has ever come so close to including all of the best talent available to us. We have a glut of young, promising attackers, and Tite called all of them. Some non-Brazilian publications lamented the absence of Roberto Firmino, while some Brazilians, mostly Flamengo fans, bemoaned Gabigol’s, but if you’ve followed the Seleção for a while, you’ll know that neither omission is a surprise, nor an unjust one. Both players have clearly been falling out of favor with Tite for at least a year, and neither has played well for Brazil in longer than that (in Gabigol’s case, he arguably never has). While I have my doubts about Gabriel Martinelli, the most “what’s he doing here?” of the forwards Tite did call, even the chances he badly missed against Bolivia show a level of speed, industriousness, and invention that the other two have proven they cannot match.

In midfield and defense, there are a few absences worth noting, but these are players who were generally either left out due to injury, have suffered a serious loss of form, or haven’t ever really proven themselves at the top level. In the first category we have Guilherme Arana and Philippe Coutinho, who might well have made the cut if they were fit. In the second category we have the likes of Coutinho (again; maybe he wouldn’t have made it regardless), Gerson, Renan Lodi, and Matheus Cunha, who all have struggled recently for their clubs. The last category is the most interesting: players like Caio Henrique, Vanderson, and Joelinton might well have been an upgrade on one or two of the players Tite did call, but they either came into the picture fairly late or are still not fully proven. We may miss one or two of these, but I don’t think any of them are nearly as egregious as the players who have been left out of past World Cups. Being able to call up 26 players instead of 23 definitely helped Tite avoid leaving deserving players at home, but a lack of room certainly wasn’t the problem in 2010, 2014, or 2018. Let’s take a look back at some of the unforced Ls Brazil’s coaches took in with their squads for those World Cups:

2010: Neymar, Pato, and Ganso were all bursting on the scene, while Ronaldinho was coming off a resurgent season for AC Milan. Any one of these four (or Diego Ribas, whose club career was on a downturn in 2010 but who had been frozen out well before that point) would have provided some much-needed creativity and invention off the bench, particularly considering that Kaká was in a fragile state. Instead, Dunga took two strikers (Nilmar and Grafite) and one out-of-form second striker (Júlio Baptista) as the extent of the team’s offensive bench options. When the team eventually found themselves in a hole against the Netherlands, Dunga had left them with no tools to dig themselves out.

2014: Some of these didn’t feel crazy at the time, but look at the list of names Luiz Felipe Scolari left behind. Miranda and Filipe Luís weren’t called up at all during the 2013-14 season, even though they won La Liga in a huge upset and reached the Champions League final at its end! (As did Diego Costa, who also scored 36 goals for Atlético Madrid that year, but his decision to defect to Spain the very first chance he got was such a gigantic dick move that I can’t fully blame Scolari for this one.) Philippe Coutinho helped turn Liverpool into title contenders and Roberto Firmino scored 22 goals for Hoffenheim in 2013-14, but neither ever got a look! Diego Alves sat on the bench for Scolari’s first game in charge and never returned, so Júlio César started in goal and played like absolute garbage! Marquinhos was excelling for Roma and PSG at just 20 years of age, and bringing him to the World Cup would have been an invaluable learning experience, but Felipão instead took absolute nobody Henrique Buss in his place! Christ. We talk about 2014 being a bad time for Brazil’s talent pool, but there was a good squad there for the picking that our coach totally failed to pick.

2018: Tite actually did a pretty good job of this in 2018 as well, if we’re being honest; his bigger sins were continuing to start out-of-form players like Gabriel Jesus and Marcelo, and not cutting injured players like Fred while he still could. But his one notable omission was an enormous one. Fabinho had already emerged as a high-quality midfield destroyer, and he’d previously played extensively as a right-back. When Casemiro was suspended against Belgium, it fell to Fernandinho to anchor the midfield and he just couldn’t keep up.

Sure, but is that talent actually good?

Even if we’ve finally called up all of our best available talent, how does that talent stack up? Is this just a thinner talent pool than we’ve had in a while? Well, it’s definitely a bit lopsided. We’re stacked with young, exciting wingers and may even have some halfway-dependable strikers as well, and we’ve got a very solid spine of quality goalkeepers, center-backs, and central midfielders. On the other hand, we don’t have a ton of quality central or creative midfielders—though Bruno Guimarães is a baller, and as frustrating as Fred is, he’s still a better player than Paulinho was—and we’re desperately short of fullbacks.

This wouldn’t be the first recent World Cup where we’ve had at least one obvious hole in the talent pool. In 2018, we were so short of quality wingers that Tite brought fucking Taison to the World Cup, not to mention that Dani Alves’ injury left a colossal hole at right-back. Fagner played his little heart out, but the drop-off in talent was painful. And on the other flank, 2018 (and 2014) raised sort of the opposite question: what’s the use of having some of the most talented players in the world if they can’t play well for Brazil? Marcelo was arguably the greatest left-back of his generation… for Real Madrid. For Brazil, he often proved to be a massive liability in key situations (as did Dani Alves, frankly, before he changed his play style to compensate for his advanced age) and struggled immensely in both the 7-1 and our loss to Belgium. The fullbacks in this year’s squad are pretty mid at best, but they’re also not so good offensively that Tite will consider exposing the team defensively in order to let them get forward, especially not when we have such a wonderful group of wingers to call upon. There’s no need to disrupt the team’s current balance, and you know what they say about balance.

(They say it’s generally good for winning soccer games.)

Does talent matter if they’re lacking form or fitness?

I remember gushing in that lost 2018 article about how many attacking players we had who were just coming off 20-goal seasons—Neymar, Coutinho, Gabriel Jesus, Firmino—or otherwise some of the best statistical seasons of their careers, as were Willian and Douglas Costa. Ultimately, most of that ended up being a mirage. Some of those players, like GJ, couldn’t turn that form into consistent goalscoring, whether for tactical reasons or because their numbers masked a decline in the quality of their play overall. Others, particularly Neymar and Douglas Costa, simply were not fully fit.

In fact, let’s talk more about the fitness thing.

(I hope Twitter survives long enough for this embedded Tweet to remain readable.) While I think this is exaggerating some players’ issues slightly (GJ returned from his major injury about three and a half months before the World Cup), it also omits a few others—Paulinho suffered a microfracture in his foot in February 2018 (and kept playing!) that completely killed his until-then surprisingly good form for Barcelona, and Danilo struggled with injuries during the World Cup itself. Not having the best versions of so many players seriously dragged the team down. A fit Douglas Costa would probably have started most of the games in place of the disappointing Willian instead of having to come off the bench, for example. A fit Danilo or a present Dani Alves would have been orders of magnitude better than Fagner.

And let’s not forget about Neymar. He was never the same player after the metatarsal fracture he suffered in February 2018, but he was also nowhere close to his best form and fitness at the World Cup from having returned from injury so soon beforehand. In 2014, he missed almost a month in April and May with a less serious foot injury, and was kicked about so much during the World Cup that he was visibly slowing even before Juan Zuñiga broke his back. Neymar isn’t as good as he was before his series of foot injuries, but for once, he may be able to bring the best version of his current self to a World Cup, and that could make all the difference. Hell, go back to 2010, when Kaká went into the tournament managing about four different injuries, or 2006 when Ronaldinho was beginning his long decline; it’s been a long time since we’ve had our number 10 come into the World Cup in good form and good health, let alone at the peak of his powers. If Neymar isn’t nearly the all-action, devastatingly fast player he was before his injuries, he still has 16 goals and 14 assists in 22 games this season.

I do have a lingering concern here, though. Several of our attacking stars have had… rocky starts with their new clubs after making moves in the summer, particularly Richarlison, Raphinha, and Paquetá. While they all played quite well in Brazil’s September friendlies, they’ve now had a further two months for their club environments to potentially erode their confidence. It’s kind of the opposite concern to what we had in 2018, where players’ good club form obscured the fact that they weren’t fully clicking in Tite’s setup. I’d say this current problem is the better problem to have, though. These players have shown they play well for Brazil. As I mentioned above, some truly great club players never do that.

Are we ready?

Lastly, it’s time to talk preparation. With only 11 days between the last club game and Brazil’s opening game, instead of the typical 3-4 weeks, Tite and the CBF opted not to play any preparatory friendlies beforehand, which on paper certainly seems like a smart choice. Certainly, it probably helps avoid injuries, though France also opted to not play any friendlies and their star players are dropping like flies (in some cases, because they’re swatting each other). Serbia, meanwhile, opted to play Bahrain on Friday and won 5-1. Maybe this will give them a little bit of extra cohesion and physical sharpness, but I’m not too worried. This isn’t the NFL, where teams have good reason to rest their starters during the month of preseason games and so sometimes look a bit rusty when they finally do play their first competitive snap in eight months; with such a short break, and after such a brutal club schedule, I think the most important thing is making sure the players are as fresh and healthy as they can be for the games that actually matter.

Incidentally, this is partly why I won’t be too upset if Vini Jr. can’t break into the starting lineup. Real Madrid played in 12 competitive matches in their last six weeks before the World Cup (and that’s with getting the weekend of November 13th off!) and Vini started 11 of those games, including the last eight. If there’s anybody who’s running the risk of burnout, it’s him.

A good, fit squad is still only half the battle. We’re likely to have a very, very challenging series of matches if we even want to think about winning the hexa this year.

Our Path To Victory

Our first two games will say a lot about how realistic our chances are of making a deep run in this World Cup. Both Serbia and Switzerland are very strong dark horse teams, both eminently capable of surprising a more established juggernaut, as Switzerland did to France at the last Euros and Serbia did to Portugal in World Cup qualifying. And what’s the main anxiety around our Seleção right now? Probably the fact that we have had so few tests against quality European opposition in the last four years. If we’re immediately overmatched against Serbia, it may bode ill for our preparedness for the rest of the tournament (and, obviously, we can’t lose these games, unthinkable as that might sound). If, on the other hand, we start strong, or we adjust well after a slow start, we might have reason to get excited. The first game historically exposes some of Brazil’s shortcomings—mental fragility in 2014, lack of creativity in 2010 and 2018—and so I’m loath to say that I’d be okay with a problematic performance, but if that performance shows Brazil facing challenges and adapting, I’ll have reason to feel optimistic.

Of course, then we have what’s likely to be a brutal path to the final. Barring some serious group stage upsets, we can expect Portugal or Uruguay in the round of 16, Germany or Spain in the quarterfinals. In a cycle where several big names are a bit off the boil, or have already lost key players to injury, this may end up being slightly less intimidating than it looks on paper, but it’s quite possible that the only thing like an “easy” matchup we’ll have is that third group stage game against Cameroon.

This is Brazil, so winning the World Cup is always the expectation, but if we can’t manage that, I’d at least want to see us reach the semifinals and beat a European opponent in the knockout stages before we bow out. This cohort of young attackers will only be closer to their primes in 2026 and 2030, when the draw is likely to give us at least a somewhat easier path to victory and before which changes to the Nations League will give us more games against European opposition. A deep run in which they break Brazil’s ongoing jinx of not having beaten a European team in the knockout rounds since 2002 would battle-harden our youngsters and relieve at least a small bit of the pressure next time.

Anyways, here are your brief match facts for our opening game, since it’s now too late to write a separate post for it.

Brazil vs. Serbia

Lusail Iconic Stadium, Lusail, November 24, 2022

Kickoff: 2:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM BRT / 7:00 PM GMT

US TV/Streaming: FOX / foxsports.com/live

Possible Starting Lineup: Alisson, Danilo, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Alex Telles; Casemiro, Lucas Paquetá; Neymar, Richarlison, Raphinha, Vini Jr.

Serbia are a serious dark-horse contender at this World Cup. Even with star striker Aleksandar Mitrović’s fitness in doubt for the opening game, this is a team with a glut of quality attacking talent: Luka Jović, Dušan Vlahović, Sergej Milinković-Savić, and Dušan Tadić have all also excelled on big stages in recent years, and this team managed to shock Portugal on the way to qualifying directly for the World Cup. That said, they haven’t had many other recent chances to show how they stack up against top teams, and there’s only so much that can be read into their recent Nations League victories over the likes of Norway and Sweden.

One other thing I’ll be very curious to see: Serbia, as in 2018, are the tallest team at this World Cup, while Brazil remain among the shortest. That wasn’t a problem in for us in the 2018 group stages, where we won 2-0 quite comfortably, but it definitely contributed to our loss against Belgium, another very tall team (especially with their XI on that day, where I think only Eden Hazard wasn’t taller than every one of Brazil’s outfield starters), where we were seriously outmuscled in midfield. Casemiro having to be replaced by Fernandinho definitely contributed there, and the 6’2″ Fabinho, even if he’s past his prime, should be able to better compete physically if he ends up having to start against that sort of opposition.

This opening game should be a decent yardstick, as Serbia are both probably better than they were four years ago and, somehow, a whole inch taller on average. I think Tite’s done a better job this time around of accounting for height and physicality, and unlike 2018 we have six-footers at least available in every sector of the field, even if they won’t start. And there’s the rub: someone like the 5’7″ Fred struggles enough to keep up against normal-sized opponents; how overmatched will he be against giants? Hey, maybe that’ll be the wake-up call Tite needs to make Bruno Guimarães the starter at last. (The latest rumors actually have neither starting so that Tite can fit Vini Jr. into the lineup, which does seem like the sort of thing that might backfire. Casemiro, Paquetá, and Neymar is only a “three-man midfield” in the most tenuous of senses.)

In any case, even a Serbian golden generation shouldn’t be enough to seriously hamper Brazil, and if it is, maybe we need to lower our expectations for this tournament. I expect we might have a few teething pains, and Brazil’s World Cup openers are always a little testy, but I think we’ll win this game 2-1.