Newcastle's Bruno Guimaraes expected to be dropped by Brazil ahead of big match

Brazil of 2024 are a far cry from the side that most of us are used to seeing and are no longer such a feared force.

In the 1970s nobody could touch Brazil and then in the 90's and 2000's they had risen to the top again, but now nothing really separates the Samba Boys from the rest of the world's top teams.

The national side has gone through several managers over the past few years and none have been able to capture the magic that many associate with Brazil.

Dorival Junior is at the helm now and he is making some big calls to try and get some kind of response out of his side.

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Bruno Guimaraes looks set to miss Friday's game against Chile

One thing he's set to try this week is to drop Newcastle United captain Bruno Guimaraes and replace him with Lucas Paqueta to face Chile in the early hours of Friday morning. Explaning his thoughts to Globo Esporte, Dorival explained that Bruno is still an important player but he needs to try something new.

“Bruno is a very important player. His departure today doesn’t mean he loses his importance, he knows that. It’s just an attempt to find a different midfield, with a player who is more accustomed to getting closer, as is the case with (Lucas) Paquetá.

“He (the West Ham United midfielder) has already performed this role in other moments here in the national team, maybe we can repeat all of this. Especially because we will have a player like Raphinha in the middle who will support the midfield. With this, we will strengthen our ability to recover the ball and reach the opponent’s goal a little more. This does not mean that, in the match, Bruno cannot maintain his importance in the group. He was one of the best players, if not the best, in the Copa América.”

Brazil could do with a certain Joelinton

Since Dorival took over he hasn't taken up the option of calling up Joelinton after the Newcastle midfielder finally received his first cap for his country in 2023.

While J7 hasn't had the most consistent start to the season, we're sure he could bring an extra dimension to that Brazil midfield that they're currently missing.

Brazil take on Chile at 1am BST on Friday so we'll see then how Dorival's gamble paid off.