Brazil began their preparations for this month’s World Cup qualifiers on Monday after convening at their Granja Comary training complex in Teresopolis.
Coach Tite will be conducting his group from their national base for the first time since his June 2016 appointment and on Monday will take his first training session there with 16 of his 24-man squad available to being work.
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Fernandinho, Ederson, Cassio, Willian, Renato Augusto, Diego Tardelli, Jemerson, Paulinho, Jorge, Gabriel Jesus, Arthur, Daniel Alves, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos and Neymar all arrived by helicopter arrived ahead of Monday, with Danilo transported in a car.
Casemiro, Philippe Coutinho, Fred and Roberto Firmino and arrived on Monday but will not participate in the first day’s training.
The remaining players, Alisson, Alex Sandro, Miranda and Diego will join the group on Tuesday.
In an interview with CBF TV, midfielder Fernandinho was quick to praise Tite’s methods of preparation of and stressed the importance of winning the last two qualifiers of this cycle.
"Now the idea imposed has to be to win both games and to finish with as many points as possible. We have to take another important step in our preparations, which has gone very well ahead of the World Cup in Russia next year,” he said.
Victories over in La Paz Bolivia and at home to Chile will see the Selecao equal the record Conmebol qualifying points tally set by Marcelo Bielsa’s Argentina in 2002.
Brazil train on Monday at 3:30 p.m. Brasília time. On Tuesday, the activity will be held at the same time and on Wednesday players will train in the morning before travelling to La Paz ahead of Tuesday’s clash.