Brazil national football team players: the 26 Ancelotti named, and the nine left from the World Cup

Carlo Ancelotti named a Brazil squad on 9 September 2026 that barely resembles the one he took to the World Cup. Twenty-six players were called up for friendlies against Australia and India, and only nine of them were in the group beaten by Norway in July. Nine others have never played for Brazil at all. Below is the full list of Brazil national football team players in the current squad, who was left out, and why a window that starts in Townsville ends in Kolkata.

Who plays for the Brazil national football team?

These 26 were called up for three matches: Australia in Townsville on 25 September, Australia again in Brisbane on 29 September, and India at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on 3 October. Marquinhos of Paris Saint-Germain captains the side. Caps and goals are as they stood on 5 July 2026, the day Brazil went out of the World Cup, because the team has not played since.

Player	Position	Club	Caps
Hugo Souza	Goalkeeper	Corinthians	1
Pedro Morisco	Goalkeeper	Coritiba	0
Otávio	Goalkeeper	Cruzeiro	0
Marquinhos (c)	Defender	Paris Saint-Germain	110
Gabriel Magalhães	Defender	Arsenal	22
Douglas Santos	Defender	Zenit Saint Petersburg	12
Wesley	Defender	Roma	8
Arthur Dias	Defender	Athletico Paranaense	0
Jair	Defender	Nottingham Forest	0
Mauro Júnior	Defender	PSV	0
Matheuzinho	Defender	Corinthians	0
Vitor Reis	Defender	Manchester City	0
Bruno Guimarães	Midfielder	Arsenal	48
Douglas Luiz	Midfielder	Juventus	18
Danilo	Midfielder	Botafogo	8
Andrey Santos	Midfielder	Manchester United	6
Breno Bidon	Midfielder	Corinthians	0
Gabriel Bontempo	Midfielder	Santos	0
Vinícius Júnior	Forward	Real Madrid	54
Raphinha	Forward	Barcelona	41
Endrick	Forward	Real Madrid	21
Estêvão	Forward	Chelsea	11
João Pedro	Forward	Chelsea	8
Pedro	Forward	Flamengo	6
Rayan	Forward	Bournemouth	6
Samuel Lino	Forward	Flamengo	1

Ten of the 26 play their club football in Brazil, spread across Corinthians, Flamengo, Botafogo, Santos, Cruzeiro, Coritiba and Athletico Paranaense. Eight play in the Premier League, more than any other league outside Brazil and as many as Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Russia manage between them. Arsenal, Chelsea and Real Madrid supply two apiece. Corinthians supply three on their own, as many as the whole of Spain.

Brazil have taken the World Cup squad apart

The turnover is the story here, and the arithmetic is blunt. Nine players survive from the 26 who went to the World Cup. Seventeen do not, and seventeen new names replace them.

Measure	World Cup squad	September squad
Combined caps	916	381
Average age on 3 October 2026	29.7	24.9
Uncapped players	0	9
Players under 23	2	11

Five hundred and thirty-five caps of international experience have gone out of the room in ten weeks. The average age has fallen by nearly five years. Eleven of the 26 will still be under 23 on the night they play India, against two in the World Cup group, and the nine uncapped players are Pedro Morisco, Otávio, Arthur Dias, Jair, Mauro Júnior, Matheuzinho, Vitor Reis, Breno Bidon and Gabriel Bontempo.

The concentration of experience is worth noting too. Marquinhos, Vinícius Júnior, Bruno Guimarães and Raphinha hold 253 of the squad’s 381 caps between them. The other 22 players share 128.

The intent is not hard to read. The players he has reached for are the ones young enough to be at their peak in 2030. A friendly tour in September and October is the cheapest place to find out which of them can play at this level.

Who was left out of the Brazil squad?

Neymar is the obvious name, and his absence is permanent rather than a selection call. He finished his international career after the World Cup as Brazil’s all-time top scorer on 80 goals and their second most-capped player on 130, behind Cafu. We looked at how that career ended and at where his 80 goals sit in Brazil’s all-time list.

The rest are choices. Alisson, 78 caps at the start of the World Cup, is not in the squad, and neither is Ederson, so Ancelotti has gone into this tour with three goalkeepers who have one cap between them. Casemiro is out. So are Alex Sandro, Fabinho, Lucas Paquetá and Danilo, the full-back born in 1991 rather than the Botafogo midfielder of the same name who kept his place. Matheus Cunha, who scored three times in the group stage, is not there. Nor are Gabriel Martinelli, Luiz Henrique, Gleison Bremer, Léo Pereira, Roger Ibañez, Igor Thiago, Weverton and Éderson Silva.

Two of the new names are not new faces so much as delayed ones. Wesley withdrew injured from the World Cup squad in June and was replaced. Estêvão did not go to the tournament at all, which looks stranger now than it did in June.

Brazil’s key players

Vinícius Júnior is the senior attacker, on 54 caps and 13 goals, and he carried the group stage almost by himself. Brazil scored seven goals in those three matches and he got four of them: the equaliser against Morocco, one against Haiti and two against Scotland. Raphinha, on 41 caps and 11 goals, is the other established forward.

Marquinhos is the captain and the most experienced player in the squad by a distance. His 110 caps put him sixth on Brazil’s all-time list and 32 behind Cafu’s record of 142, and he turned 32 in May.

Estêvão is the one to watch. He turned 19 in April, has five goals in 11 internationals, and plays for Chelsea alongside João Pedro. Endrick, back at Real Madrid, has 21 caps at 20. Bruno Guimarães anchors the midfield after his move to Arsenal, where he joins Gabriel Magalhães, and Andrey Santos of Manchester United is the most senior of the young midfielders behind him.

Who is the Brazil national football team coach?

Carlo Ancelotti, appointed in May 2025 after leaving Real Madrid. He is the first foreign coach to lead Brazil at a World Cup, and the only manager to have won the Champions League five times, twice with Milan and three times with Real Madrid. The tournament did not go well, and he has responded by rebuilding rather than tinkering, which is not what most people expected from a 67-year-old.

How did Brazil’s 2026 World Cup go?

They won Group C without ever looking convincing. Morocco held them 1-1 in the opener on 13 June, Haiti were beaten 3-0 six days later, and Scotland were beaten 3-0 on 24 June. Japan took them to a stoppage-time winner in the round of 32 on 29 June. Then Erling Haaland scored twice in the last 11 minutes at MetLife Stadium on 5 July and Norway won 2-1, with Neymar’s injury-time penalty the last goal of his international career.

It was the first World Cup since 1990 at which Brazil failed to reach the quarter-finals, and their final placing of 11th is their lowest since 1966, when they also finished 11th. Our assessment of that exit argued the problems ran deeper than one bad night, and the September squad suggests Ancelotti agrees. Spain went on to win the tournament.

Brazil play India in Kolkata on 3 October

The last match of the tour is the one Indian supporters have been waiting for. Brazil face India at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, officially the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, on 3 October 2026. The two senior men’s teams have never played each other before. Not once, in either country’s history.

The gap is enormous. Brazil were fifth in the FIFA ranking published on 20 July 2026, India were 138th, and the All India Football Federation describes Brazil as the highest-ranked opponent India have faced since the world ranking was introduced in 1992. India will also host Panama in Bengaluru on 25 September and Uruguay in Kolkata on 6 October, and they have never played Panama either. Brazil, for reference, beat Panama 6-2 in a friendly on 31 May.

If you want the other side of the fixture, our guide to the India national football team squad has the 26 players Khalid Jamil has picked for those three matches.

Brazil’s record, in short

Five World Cups, in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002, which is more than any other country. Two more finals lost, in 1950 and 1998. Brazil are also the only nation to have appeared at every World Cup, a run now stretching to 23 tournaments. Cafu holds the caps record on 142 and Neymar the scoring record on 80. The closest active player to either mark is Marquinhos, and he is still 32 caps short.

The head-to-head record against Argentina is the one Brazilian supporters argue about most, and the counts genuinely disagree depending on which matches you include.

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