The Brazilian national team will play two friendlies in Brazil over the next week. First, on Saturday in Goiânia, a rematch of the quarter-final game with Holland that ended Brazil’s campaign in last year’s World Cup. And then on the following Tuessday, Ronaldo’s farewell game, against Romania, held at the Pacaembu stadium in São Paulo.
On the 19th of May, Brazil coach Mano Menezes announced the roster for those games and gave us a decent idea of the team he’ll use for the upcoming Copa América in Argentina. The list includes 28 players for the two friendlies, plus Ronaldo, who will only play for some part of the first half of the second friendly. The plan is for Ronaldo not to be a starter in that game, but to come on as a substitute some time before the first half ends. There will be some kind of celebration at halftime, and then Ronaldo’s time with the Seleção will be over. Another player will take his place in the second half of the Romania friendly, and the Seleção’s post-Ronaldo era will officially begin.
Is Neymar going off to Europe? Is Ganso following the same path? If it depended on the opinions of Mano Menezes, coach of the Seleção, and Zagallo, four-time world champ with Brazil, the answers would be the same: no. On Monday afternoon, in an event held by a CBF sponsor (translator says: from the pics, it looks like it was Gillette), both defended the idea of the two Santos stars staying longer in “the football country.”