Four years on from a humiliating 7-1 home World Cup exit to Germany, Brazil are back and better than ever.
Fantasy managers are encouraged to build their teams around a spine of Brazilian stars from all positions.
The Selecao’s World Cup squad is full of players at their peak who are sure to light up this summer’s finals.
ROAD TO QUALIFICATION
After a shaky start, Brazil romped to the top of South America’s qualification league in some style and are now one of the favourites for the title in Russia. Their campaign all hinged on the dismissal of coach Dunga in 2016 with the Selecao sixth in CONMEBOL’s round-robin and eliminated at the group stages of the Copa America Centenario.
His replacement Tite is widely seen as one of the best to have led Brazil for some time. Incredibly methodical and meticulous, the 56-year-old once carried out an in-depth study of European football and applied it to his Corinthians side, enabling him to win a domestic, continental and world treble with them in 2011-12. With the national team, he largely used the same personnel that Dunga had but exacted tactical changes to make them more defensively solid, favouring a 4-1-4-1 system that shifts to a 4-3-3 in attack. In their current guise, Brazil are still great on the counter, as you would expect, but now that they are more compact at the back they are harder to break down and are even better in possession.
Those tactics resulted in 10 wins and two draws from the final 12 qualifying matches. Brazil scored 30 goals across that period (2.5 per game) and finished 10 points clear at the top of South America’s qualification table.
Since booking their place in Russia, Brazil have won all but one of their friendlies, England the only side they failed to beat. In that spell they have conceded just one goal and recorded four clean sheets. Coach Tite has been studying how to attack five-man defences of-late in the knowledge that many nations will use it against Brazil in Russia, so he and his squad are well prepared for what is to come.
A third of the current group were on the roster when Brazil were crushed in the semi-finals of their own World Cup four years ago and there is a sense that it’s time for the Selecao to take its revenge…
CONMEBOL QUALIFYING
Most starts: Joao Miranda (17), Allison (16), Renato Augusto (15), Neymar (14), Marquinhos (12), Paulinho, Willian (both 11).
Most goals: Gabriel Jesus (7), Neymar, Paulinho (both 6), Philippe Coutinho, Willian (both 4), Renato Augusto (3).
Most assists: Neymar (9), Jesus, Willian (both 5), Douglas Costa (4), Coutinho, Marcelo, Paulinho, Renato Augusto (all 2).
THE KEY TARGETS
It should be no surprise to see the world-class Neymar as the headline Fantasy option in Brazil’s ranks. Priced at £8.1m on Fantasy iTeam, he is cheaper than Cristiano Ronaldo (£8.2m) and Lionel Messi (£8.2m) but is likely to outscore both of them, in the opinion of this author. The Paris Saint Germain forward was involved in 15 goals during qualifying, six of which were his own, the other nine he was the assister for. With the help of much better team-mates than can be found at Portugal and Argentina, if it’s a choice between the three best players in the world, Neymar has to be the one you include at the expense of the other two. Especially considering he appears to have won the fitness race after fracturing a bone in his foot in February. The PSG man scored a wonderful individual goal in his comeback from injury in a 2-0 win for Brazil over Croatia at Anfield on Sunday. Be wary of Neymar’s well-documented petulance, though. He was shown six yellow cards in qualifying with only Argentina’s Nicolas Otamendi picking up more cautions in South America (seven). Neymar is priced at a huge £12.0m on McDonald’s FIFA.
Gabriel Jesus (£7.8m on Fantasy iTeam | £9.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) was the Selecao’s top-scorer in World Cup qualification, finding the net on seven occasions and assisting five times in just nine starts. The Manchester City forward averaged a goal-involvement in qualifying every 66 minutes. He has firmly established himself as the first-choice centre-forward for Brazil, with Neymar deployed to the left of him. Coach Tite is a huge fan of Jesus’ work saying recently “his competitive sense and team sense have impressed me in training and in everyday life.” It’s been another impressive league season for the 21-year-old too. Despite missing six weeks of the 2017/18 campaign with injury and forming a selection rotation with Sergio Aguero at Man City, Jesus still involved himself in 20 league goals, averaging an involvement every 83 minutes. He has added a further two international goals in friendlies since qualification finished.
Fantasy Premier League managers still frustrated by Willian’s rotation at Chelsea can take solace in his regular starts for Brazil. In qualifying he started 11 times and has featured from the beginning of four of the last five friendlies. As you can imagine, when afforded extended game-time he has delivered goals and assists with regularity. In qualifying it was four and five respectively, and in subsequent warm-up matches Willian added a further two assists. Priced at £7.1m on Fantasy iTeam and £8.5m on McDonald’s FIFA, Willian is cheaper than Philippe Coutinho (£7.4m on Fantasy iTeam | £9.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) despite contributing to more goals than him in qualifying.
In defence, the standout candidate is Inter Milan’s Joao Miranda (£6.0m on Fantasy iTeam | £5.5m on McDonald’s FIFA), who has proved first choice at centre-back under Tite. Investing in this area of Brazil’s squad looks sensible considering that they conceded just 0.6 goals per game during qualifying. The Selecao recorded 10 clean sheets from a possible 18. Since they booked a record 21st World Cup appearance, it’s just one conceded in five friendlies and four clean sheets. Alternatively, Fantasy managers could look to the established Allison (£6.1m on Fantasy iTeam | £6.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) in goal for another way into the Brazilian defence.
THE LONG SHOTS
Such is the quality within in Brazil’s squad that their comparatively ‘long-shot’ candidates are better than most nations’ ‘key targets’. A transformed player since moving to Barcelona, Paulinho (£6.7m on Fantasy iTeam | £8.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) scored as many goals in qualifying as Neymar, adding another two assists. The former Tottenham midfielder has thrived in a new role in Brazil’s line-up playing on the right-hand side of the 4-1-4-1. When the Selecao are on the attack, Paulinho effectively operates as if he’s the right-forward in a 4-3-3. In his debut season in Catalonia he found the net nine times and assisted twice. Paulinho is in the form of his life both for club and country – and with his price in the mid-range bracket, he could be an excellent Fantasy asset in Russia.
Philippe Coutinho (£7.4m on Fantasy iTeam | £9.0m on McDonald’s FIFA) is the most expensive of the Brazilian midfielders but is still worth investing in. Operating on the opposite flank to Paulinho in Tite’s new system, the former Liverpool man scored four times and assisted two goals in qualifying. He only started eight matches of the campaign but has been in the XI for the last four friendlies in a row, recording a goal and an assist.
Roberto Firmino (£7.7m on Fantasy iTeam | £8.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) only played 273 minutes during qualifying and hasn’t started an international match since September, but he still registered a goal and assist. It was his best ever season with Liverpool in 2017/18 scoring 15 goals and assisting eight more so he’s certainly pushing for start. If Neymar were to suffer an injury setback between now and the beginning of the tournament, the Liverpool man could be an effective stand-in.
In defence, Danilo (£6.1m on Fantasy iTeam | £5.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) has started both friendlies when otherwise ever-present right-back Dani Alves has been absent. The latter has been left out of Brazil’s World Cup squad, increasing the chances of the Man City man getting a place in the first XI against Switzerland on June 17. He provided an assist in January’s 3-1 win over Japan. On the opposite flank Marcelo (£6.4m on Fantasy iTeam | £6.5m on McDonald’s FIFA) has registered a goal and two assists in qualifying and seems to have kept hold of the left-back starting berth in recent friendlies.
Further Analysis
Our comprehensive World Cup guide can be found here.
Group A – Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay
Group B – Iran, Morocco, Portugal, Spain
Group C – Australia, Peru, France, Denmark
Group D – Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria
Group E – Brazil, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Serbia
Group F – Mexico, Germany, Sweden, South Korea
Group G – Belgium, Panama, Tunisia, England
Group H – Senegal, Japan, Poland, Colombia
Our editor’s Fantasy World Cup tips as told to Proper Sport
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