Alt: Ancelotti with Neymar and young footballers collage
Twenty-six names on a list and the biggest one missing. You probably saw it coming if you’ve been tracking Ancelotti’s squad announcements through the 1xbet app or just scrolling football feeds on March 16. Neymar, left out again, and this time the sting feels more permanent than the last few omissions. He’s 34. He tore his ACL in October 2023 and spent the better part of two and a half years clawing back to match fitness. The final roster drops May 18, and the man with 79 international goals just ran out of audition dates.
A Scouting Trip That Backfired
Here’s the thing about what happened in Mirassol. Ancelotti doesn’t fly to watch midtable Série A games. He just doesn’t. The coaching staff flagged the March 10 Santos fixture specifically so the boss could sit in the stands and watch Neymar move, evaluate his sharpness firsthand, then fold whatever he saw into the final squad decision.
Santos played. Neymar sat. Muscular soreness, the club said. Precautionary.
Hard to overstate how poorly that timing worked out. You’ve got the head coach of a five-time World Cup winning nation making a personal trip to a ground in the interior, and the one player he came to see is in tracksuit pants on the bench. Multiple outlets reported frustration inside the camp, and honestly, frustration seems like an understatement.
Neymar did turn up for the Corinthians derby later that week, went the full 90 in a 1-1 draw, and a pair of Ancelotti’s assistants were in the stands taking notes. But the damage from the Mirassol no-show had already been done. At the press conference, Ancelotti said it plainly enough. “With the ball, he is very good. For the coaching staff, for me, he is not at 100% of his possibilities.” Technical ability was never the debate and everyone involved knows it. The legs are the problem. A full match against Corinthians after missing the one fixture the entire coaching staff had traveled to see. That just isn’t enough.
Hours after the squad dropped, Neymar showed up at a Kings League event in São Paulo, grabbed a mic, and told the crowd he was “upset and sad.” Which, fine. But the calendar doesn’t care about feelings. Roughly 16 club fixtures remain before the May 18 deadline across three competitions, and two goals plus one assist in 180 Série A minutes prove the talent still exists. His body’s ability to survive three matches a week for six consecutive weeks is the part nobody can answer yet.
Why the New Forwards Tell a Bigger Story
Two guys with zero senior caps got calls instead. And their backgrounds say a lot about where Ancelotti is steering this team.
| Player | Club | Age | 25/26 PL Goals | PL Appearances | Fee Paid |
| Igor Thiago | Brentford | 24 | 19 | 30 | £30m |
| Rayan | Bournemouth | 19 | 2 | 7 | £24.7m |
Igor Thiago’s story is the kind football loves to package into a documentary. Mother cleaned streets in Brasília. He did construction work, odd jobs, flyer distribution. Cruzeiro’s academy was the entry point, then Ludogorets in southeastern Europe for two league titles and proper professional seasoning, Club Brugge after that, and eventually a club-record move to Brentford. Where he promptly got injured and scored nothing for an entire season. Nobody outside of Brentford’s scouting department would have predicted what came next. Second in the Golden Boot race behind Haaland and the all-time record for goals by a Brazilian player in a single Premier League campaign, a mark that Firmino, Martinelli, and Matheus Cunha had shared at 15.
Rayan is almost the opposite. Left Vasco da Gama in January and immediately scored in his first three Bournemouth appearances, something only Robbie Keane and Anthony Martial had done as teenagers in the Premier League. Pace off the right, a left foot that cuts in hard. Ancelotti called him “powerful, disciplined” at the press conference, and the understatement there is wild considering this kid has less than two months in the top flight and just leapfrogged his nation’s all-time leading scorer onto the squad sheet.
If you follow pre-tournament betting lines, a squad built around this kind of youth and speed shifts the calculus for Group C. The Seleção face the Atlas Lions on June 13, with the Tartan Army and Caribbean debutants completing the pool, and through the 1xbet download, you can place your bet on these. Oddsmakers will have to recalibrate how they price the five-time champions with an attacking corps that looks nothing like last cycle’s.
Eight Roster Spots Still in Play
Endrick slots into the gap that Rodrygo’s six-month knee injury left, having put in six goals across 12 Lyon appearances. Gabriel Sara gives Ancelotti a midfield option from Galatasaray he didn’t have before. Reports say 18 of the 26 World Cup spots are already decided.
Neymar still has his 16 fixtures to make a case.