Fading hope of Kaka and Ronaldinho

Brazil's assistant manager, Carlos Alberto Parreira, has stated that Luiz Felipe Scolari "won't be experimenting" with his squads in the lead-up to the World Cup. This represents a blow for the likes of Kaká and Ronaldinho, who haven't been called up for a year.

"Now is not the time to experiment", Parreira told Brazilian television channel 'Globo'. The 71-year-old, who coached the 'Seleção' at the 1994 and 2006 World Cups, went on to rule out any wildcard inclusions in the squad for this summer's main event, which will be announced at the beginning of May.

For recent matches, Scolari and Parreira – who decide on the squads in tandem – have by and large kept faith with the group of players that won last year's Confederations Cup, only introducing the odd change.

That means the attackers Neymar, Fred, Jô and Hulk have all kept their places, while there has been no recall for Kaká or Ronaldinho, neither of whom have featured at international level since the beginning of 2013.

Parreira also explained that Brazil's forward planning ahead of the World Cup goes right "up to the final", which will be played at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro on 13th July.

The five-time world champions have three friendlies lined up, the first of which is against South Africa in Johannesburg on 5th March. Their warm-up fixtures immediately before the competition gets underway will both come at home, against Panama in Goiânia on 3rd June and against Serbia in São Paulo three days later.


/Marca/