Carlo Ancelotti named Brazil's 26-man squad for the 2026 World Cup on Monday, and the headline was a single name: Neymar. The 34-year-old made the cut. Chelsea striker Joao Pedro, Real Betis winger Antony, and veteran defender Thiago Silva did not.
The Neymar call
Neymar's inclusion is the least obvious selection on the list. Brazil's all-time leading scorer has barely played in two years — his 2023 move to Al-Hilal was wrecked by an ACL injury that limited him to seven appearances before he returned to boyhood club Santos in 2025, and Ancelotti had left him out of Brazil's March fixtures entirely. The coach was blunt about the terms. "I want to be clear, clean and honest," Ancelotti said. "He will play if he deserves to play." That is a roster spot offered as an audition, not a guarantee — a notable thing to say out loud about the most famous footballer his country has produced this century.
The Joao Pedro omission
The cut that will travel furthest is Joao Pedro. The Chelsea striker scored 20 goals in a strong club season — exactly the form a national team is supposed to reward. Ancelotti's reasoning was that club form is not international form: Joao Pedro has yet to score in eight caps for Brazil, and the coach judged he had not produced his best in a yellow shirt. Antony, also in good club form at Betis, was left out on similar logic. Thiago Silva's exclusion quietly closes the book on a different era of the national team.
The read
This is a squad built on a specific belief: that a World Cup is won on ceiling and tournament temperament, not on the current-season goal chart. Ancelotti — the first permanent foreign manager in Brazil's history — is betting that a fit Neymar's best is worth more in a knockout match than Joao Pedro's reliable club output, and he is willing to be proven wrong in public. Brazil has not won the World Cup since 2002. With national-team squads firming up ahead of the tournament, the country's question is no longer who is on the plane — it is whether the gamble on Neymar's fitness pays at the only time it counts.
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