Brazil manager Carlo Ancelotti said Wednesday that he would deploy four forwards in the team’s penultimate World Cup qualifier against Chile at Rio’s Maracana Stadium.
The five-time world champion will be without established stars Vinicius Junior and Neymar for the last double-header of qualifiers as Ancelotti tests less familiar names, reports Xinhua.
The Italian’s starting lineup on Thursday is expected to feature an attacking quartet of Estevao, Gabriel Martinelli, Joao Pedro and Raphinha.
“I tried out four forwards in training and that’s the idea, to play without changing much of what we did (in the last qualifier) against Paraguay,” Ancelotti told a news conference.
“We’re going to have a lot of forwards, but the important thing is that the team doesn’t lose balance and defends well. We want to play with intensity, be strong defensively, apply good offensive pressure, and play quickly with the ball. We hope the fans will be happy with our performance.”
Ancelotti said the formation may change for the team’s last qualifier on Tuesday against Bolivia in El Alto, at more than 4,000 meters above sea level.
“This team can play with several systems,” he said. “It depends on the type of game we want to play and the opponent. The system we use against Bolivia might be very different.”
Brazil is currently third in the 10-team South American qualifying group, having already secured its place in football’s showpiece event next year.
Ancelotti acknowledged the team had entered an important stage as it fine-tunes preparations for the tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“It’s true that we’re now in the final straight,” he said. “We have to take advantage of this time to try not to make mistakes with the 25 players who will play in the World Cup.”
“Making mistakes in this sense is easy to do. There’s a lot of competition because Brazil has many players with a lot of quality. We may have positions that are more covered than others, but I don’t think it’s a position that will define the success of the World Cup. It’s a team as a whole that will do that,” he added.
