(Reuters) – Brazil are the bookmakers’ favourites to win the World Cup but their lack of friendlies against European opposition over the last four years perturbs coach Tite, who fears it could cost them in Qatar.
Brazil were drawn in Group G on Friday and will face Switzerland, Serbia and Cameroon in the finals.
They are unquestionably the best side in South America along with Argentina, having recorded a record 45 points in the qualifiers and going unbeaten in all 17 matches.
But without game time against teams such as France, Spain, England and Germany, Tite admitted there was a question mark over just how good the five-times world champions really are.
“We don’t have these encounters so there’s a doubt,” he said last year.
In the four years between the last two World Cups, Brazil faced eight European teams including holders Germany, hosts Russia and eventual winners France.
However, in the four years since Belgium knocked them out at the quarter-final stage in Russia, they have only once met a team from Europe, beating the Czech Republic 3-1 in a March 2019 friendly.
That is down partly to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has squeezed the football calendar since 2020, but it is also because of the Nations League.
The launch of the Nations League in 2018 was designed, according to UEFA, to “reduce the number of meaningless friendlies”.
Brazil, though, see such friendlies not as meaningless but as a chance to test themselves against the best in the world and Tite has repeatedly asked the Brazilian Football Confederation to arrange games against European sides.
“Any friendly against any European team, because it is important,” he told reporters last year. “We want it. The side wants it.”
The Europeans, meanwhile, appear less worried, if comments from Spanish coach Luis Enrique are anything to go by.
When asked about the lack of transatlantic encounters, he shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t think we miss playing against teams from other continents,” he told TNT Sports Brasil last week. “European teams are the top level, the four semi-finalists at the last World Cup were European.”
“The day we have to play against them we’ll try the best we can. It will be tough, of course, but I don’t think it is a problem.”
(Reporting by Andrew Downie; editing by Clare Fallon)
