Carlo Ancelotti has called up a 34-year-old Neymar to Brazil's World Cup squad despite a grade-two calf injury. That one sentence tells you almost everything you need to know about where the Selecao stand heading into this tournament.
Neymar hasn't worn the yellow shirt since tearing his knee ligaments in 2023. He spent an underwhelming stint in Saudi Arabia, returned to boyhood club Santos hoping to rediscover himself, and instead found more injuries and off-field noise. Ancelotti didn't include him in any squad during his first year in charge. Now, with the World Cup three weeks away, he's back in. Not because of form. Because Brazil can't afford to leave him out.
A squad built around absences
The injuries stacking up tell the real story. Estevao, Rodrygo, and Eder Militao are all missing. For a country that essentially invented the attacking full-back — Nilton Santos, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Roberto Carlos — relying on Danilo and Alex Sandro, both well past their best at Juventus, is a significant step down. Both flanks are exposed, and that matters against Morocco, Haiti, and Scotland in Group C.
Between the posts, Alisson had an injury-interrupted season at Liverpool. Ederson has left Manchester City for Turkish football. The goalkeeper situation is uncomfortable for a nation that expects to win tournaments, not navigate them.
Casemiro, 34, carries the midfield. He had a fine season at Manchester United — genuinely fine, not just respectable — but asking him to do it for five or six more knockout rounds at a World Cup is a different kind of demand.
The one area where Brazil still look dangerous is their attacking options: Vinicius Jr, Raphinha, Matheus Cunha, and Endrick give Ancelotti real quality in the final third. The question is where a partially fit Neymar fits into that group when Ancelotti's own tactical brief calls for high pressing and relentless running.
Ancelotti extends his stay — the pressure doesn't
The Italian recently signed a contract extension through 2030, citing belief in Brazil's young talent. He's also named 15 players who were at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar — a record number of returnees in Brazilian history. That's experience. But that group was also largely disappointing last time around.
Brazil have not won the World Cup since 2002. Fail in 2026 and it becomes the longest title drought in their history. A nation that has won it five times, and played in every single edition of the tournament, measuring time by how long it's been since the last one.
Ancelotti told Reuters in May that his side must press high and run relentlessly. Whether Neymar can do that from a standing start, after two weeks recovering from a calf injury, with his first competitive action being a knockout-stage World Cup opener against Morocco in New Jersey on June 13, is one of the bigger unanswered questions in international football right now. Brazil's odds of lifting a sixth title rest heavily on the answer.
