Since coming back to his boyhood club, Santos in January, the 33-year-old has failed to live up to the hype and has spent more time in the medical room than on the pitch as he struggles to get to full fitness.
The veteran made no secret of the fact that he wants to represent his country at next summer’s World Cup but that dream is looking extremely unlikely as he continues to fail to string together a run of games.
Now, Ancelotti announced the squad list for the next two friendlies, which will be against Senegal and Tunisia. That squad includes Fabinho, who has not been called up since Qatar 2022 and seven players from the Brasileirao not evidently no Neymar.
The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain forward has his last selection back in March of this year but that ended in withdrawal due to yet another injury setback. To put it simply, he is running out of time and he is very unlikely to make the cut with under a year until the tournament.
"For 15 years, Neymar was Brazil's undisputed star, carrying enormous expectations and responsibility on his own", former AC Milan and Roma legend Cafu said.
"But no one wins the World Cup alone. Putting all our hopes on him at the moment is difficult because he struggles to even play three games in a row."