Brazil must embrace WC favourites tag: Gaspar
The Selecaos manager Edu Gaspar admits the Selecao will be among the front-runners in Russia and insists their tournament stars now.
Brazils manger Edu Gaspar has reminded all the players and staff that this week sees the beginning of a special moment in their lives.
On Monday, the staff and players began arriving at their Granja Comary training complex for the pre-World Cup preparations, reports Goal.com. And Edu was first to face the media, opening up on Neymar, the importance of their upcoming Brasil Global Tour clashes against Croatia and Austria.
Neymar will hear from Tite that he spent three months off the pitch and will not be the exceptional Neymar after that, said Edu. We will create some ground for him to get his self-confidence back, and that it goes up without too much pressure on his performances.
He will keep doing what he has been doing at Paris Saint-Germain. There is a physical part, then a technical aspect. But there will also be the emotional side, so he understands the magnitude of what we are doing.
Today, we talked about playing those two games as if they were the World Cup
We studied those two teams tactically and saw they were ideal opponents. For now, they are more important than our [first game of the World Cup].
The regulations say we have to submit a long-list of 35-players to FIFA. My deadline to submit the final list [of 23] is June 4, at which point the list of 35 is cut.
After that date, in case of [injury] problems, it can be changed 24 hours prior to the opening. But it is important to know that, even with these details, none of the [12 players on the list of reserves] would miss Copa Brasil or Copa Libertadores matches if we needed to call them. We must not be afraid to say that Brazil is among the favourites, and not take that as a burden, its a matter of being realistic. If we look at all the facts, Brazil is a great national team.
