Ancelotti puts Neymar in and Thiago Silva out as Brazil's 26-man World Cup squad lands with a calf scare
Carlo Ancelotti named his first Brazil squad for a World Cup on Monday, and the headline made itself. Neymar is back. Thiago Silva is out. The Italian's 26-man list, announced at Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Tomorrow, locks in a little under three weeks before the Seleção open Group C against Morocco at MetLife Stadium on June 13.
The numbers around Neymar's return tell the story. The Santos forward is 34, has not pulled on a Brazil shirt since October 2023, when a torn ACL and torn meniscus against Uruguay started the long road that ran through Al Hilal and an injury-shortened return home in January. The recall reduced him to tears, and one of the first calls he made afterwards was to Raphinha, who has spent most of the qualifying campaign carrying the attack without him.
The calf is the asterisk
What Ancelotti picked and what he gets to use in 19 days are not yet the same thing. Santos confirmed earlier this week that Neymar has a calf problem that puts him at risk of missing Brazil's pre-tournament friendlies. The CBF is expected to evaluate him by May 27, and his availability for the opener is still being managed week by week.
It is the third major injury cloud hanging over Neymar in this World Cup cycle, and the one that decides whether his comeback is a tournament-shaping moment or a 90-second cameo from the bench. Ancelotti has called him in anyway, on the basis that even a half-fit Neymar gives Brazil something no one else in the squad can offer.
Thiago Silva's run ends at four
For all the noise around Neymar, the harder call was at the back. Thiago Silva is 41, has just won the Primeira Liga in his first season at Porto and was on the preliminary 55-man list Ancelotti released on May 12. He did not make the final 26. Four straight World Cups, from 2010 through 2022, end here for one of the most-capped defenders Brazil have ever produced.
Ancelotti's reading of the centre-back room came down to Marquinhos, Gabriel Magalhães and Bremer as the senior trio, with Roger Ibañez and Léo Pereira completing the cover. None of them have played a World Cup. Brazil are betting on a defensive group that is younger, faster and untested at this level rather than the one that has been there before.
The other omissions
Thiago Silva was not the only headline drop. João Pedro, fresh off a strong first season at Chelsea, was left out, and Ancelotti himself admitted on Tuesday that the Chelsea striker "probably deserved to be on this list" for the year he had just put together. Richarlison, Savinho, Gabriel Jesus, Andrey Santos and Antony were the other senior names to miss out.
Antony, who completed a permanent move from Manchester United to Real Betis last September and has been one of the better stories in LaLiga since, responded by thanking Ancelotti and saying the dream was still alive. João Pedro's statement struck a similar note. The pattern across the omissions is consistent: Ancelotti has gone for players he can build a structure around, rather than form-pickups whose role would have to be invented on arrival.
Ancelotti's first proper tournament
This is the squad Ancelotti has been pointing towards since he took the Brazil job in May 2025. The qualifying phase under him was patchy, the friendlies more useful than memorable, and the federation responded last week by tying him to a contract extension through the 2030 World Cup. That deal is now retroactive context for a squad list that asks a lot of him.
Brazil have not won a World Cup since 2002, the longest barren run in their history. Four of the five campaigns since have ended in the quarter-finals, including the 2022 night against Croatia on penalties that hollowed out the country for weeks, and 2014 ended at home in a 1-7 semi-final defeat to Germany that has its own shorthand in Brazilian football. The pressure on Ancelotti to deliver, with or without Neymar's calf, is not subtle.
What is next
Brazil's group games are spread across the eastern United States. The opener against Morocco is at MetLife on June 13. Haiti follow at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on June 19, and the group closer against Scotland is at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on June 24. By the time the bracket clarifies for Brazil's last-16 tie, Ancelotti will already know whether the Neymar bet has paid off or whether the calf has decided it for him.
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