The whole of Brazil had their hearts in their mouths as star forward Neymar went down with an ankle injury during training, sparking doubts about his World Cup fitness.
The Barcelona star rolled his ankle during the selecao’s training session outside Rio de Janeiro ford, him to receive treatment on the pitch. However. after spending some time on the floor, the World cop’s poster-boy was role to pick himself up and walls gin,* away.
Neymar was soon able to resume bunting and looks set to be fateful. his place in the starting line-up on against Croa-
tia ® Thursday. Meanwhile, Brazil have hero paying extra
attention to their defence ahead of the opening game. Manager Luiz Felipe Scolari spent part of the tram’s trait, ‘,session on Monday making adjustments to his defensive setup, stopping practice s.eveval timm to reposition players until he was satisfied. Although Brazil didn’t concede a goal in their two warm-up matches, Malan said he was not com¬pletely satisfied with how his squad played defensively. One of the coach’s main goals in the last week of prepara¬tions was to make suretheteam toady defensively in time for the opener. We know that if we don’t concede goals, our chances to win matches increase, because we know the kind of talent we have in attack,’; said Scolati. ‘It’s important we are well pre CB,” pared on defense so we arena caught by surprise:
Right back Daniel Alves acknowledged that Brazil’s defence isn’t perfect, but said the team is worldng to improve before the opener.
When told the Croatia striker (vin Otis said he saw spaces in Brazils defer]se during the warm-up match., ANa admowledged that adjustments still bane to he made. ‘Obviously, if we di dot make mistakes, wewould be a per team, and that’s not possible,’ the Barcelona defender said if Olic saw mac., then we have to make sure we fix that so he can’t find them anymore_’
The last lime Brazil conceded a goal was in a x-1 win mar Chile in a friendly last November. Brazil beat Panama 4-o and Serbia no Into week in the last two matches before for [hemming match in Sao Paulo
‘Physically we are ready, but radically we still have to adjust a few things,’ Salad said.
The coach’s other main focus during Mondays training was on set pieces – another area where he said Brazil MR needs to improve.
Brasil are expected to practice again at its trebling camp outride trio de Janeiro on Tuesday before traveling to Sao Paulo later in the day for the opener.
