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In the old days of Brazilian footbal, thousands of fans anxiously awaited the announcement of the Brazilian National Team matches and respective venues, so they could quicky secure tickets before they sold out. Brazilians would have to deal with regional travel logistics if the national home match was out of town in the huge country.

Today, that situation is a bit more complicated as Brazil has adopted London as its second home. Consequently, people in Brazil lost the excitement when a home friendly is announced, as it now involves a trans-atlantic flight to attend.

The last international friendly that Brazil had the privilege to truly play at home was in the capital Brasilia. In that occasion Brazil defeated its mother country Portugal with an astonishing 6-2 scoreline back on November 8th, 2008. There is not too much that could be done regarding this issue as Brazil has international commercial contracts to fulfill known as the "Brazil World Tour". Out of 25 friendly games organized since 2006, 17 games were played in Europe, 4 in the United States, 3 in the Middle East and 1 in Brazil. In addition to that, even though coach Dunga has mentioned several times that he rather play in Brazil. His coaches on the contrary prefer to play in Europe since most of the them usually selected for the team play throughout Europe and it becomes easier to catch a plane to London.

Dunga has also said that he feels comfortable playing under London´s cold weather because he finds London people nice and warm. London has hosted Brazil 6 times before since 2006.

• 02/10/2009 – Brazil 2 x 0 Italy at Emirates Stadium
• 03/26/2008 – Brazil 1 X 0 Sweden at Emirates Stadium
• 06/01/2007 – Brazil 1 x 1 England at Wembley
• 02/06/2007 – Brazil 0 X 2 Portugal at Emirates Stadium
• 09/05/2006 – Brazil 2 X 0 Wales Tottenham Stadium
• 09/03/2006 - Brazil 3 X 0 Argentina at Emirates Stadium

Sevilla’s and Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano known as "Fabigol" in virtue of his 27 goals wearing the yellow jersey was taken off the original list of 22 players selected for this game due to a muscle injury in his chest. The injury got worse last weekend in Sevilla´s game for the Spanish La Liga. He is going to miss this game due to physiotherapy in his own country, in order to recover as soon as possible. This problem, however, should not keep him sidelined for the World Cup, suggests the doctor of the Brazilian national team. He estimates that the treatment to get him recovered will take initially three weeks. Coach Dunga said that he is confident that he will be in a good shape to go to South Africa. Another player who has a light sprained ankle is midfielder Elano. He is being evaluated by the doctor to see if he can play the game.

Although manager Dunga has mentioned that the final list of 23 players for the World Cup is not defined yet, the 23 players selected for this friendly give an idea of who may have his place secured to go to South Africa. One thing is for sure, this will be the last chance to leave a postive impression before Dunga makes his final selection.

As the main Brazilian striker is Luis Fabiano is missing the game, the situation opens up a great chance for Adriano who could be in the starting lineup against Ireland. The other selected players that could work along Adriano are Robinho, Nilmar and Graffite. Manager Dunga, nevertheless, has not confirmed yet who is taking care of the offense to rattle Ireland´s goal.

In the last couple of days Dunga has decided to call up for the first time striker Graffite. He is doing an outstanding job in Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.  He had a great 2008/2009 campaign scoring 28 goals and winning the German championship. Analysts believe that it was unfair not calling him before as he became the leading scorer of the German League two years ago, so this opportunity may be the big one for him to get his airline ticket to South Africa. Another player called at the last moment was midfielder Carlos Eduardo who plays for Hoffenheim in Germany who will have his third participation in the national team, press believe that Ronaldinho should have been called instead.

33 year old left defender Gilberto, currently playing for Cruzeiro in Brazil is the most experienced player among the group in his position. He thinks that the fact of being the most experienced one does not guarantee him for the world cup. His position is probably one the few that coach Dunga is still undecided on. Gilberto played 22 matches out of 52 in the Dunga era and wants to know what the manager´s intentions are. Gilberto was called because coach Dunga apparently was not completely convinced with Andre Santos´ performance in the last games with Brazil.

Ironically striker Robinho comes back to England after leaving Mancherster City because he was simply not performing well. Now he wants to show everybody and especially Dunga that he has good arguments to be selected for the World Cup.

Is anyone missing on this list of stars?

Not only the Brazilian nation but the whole world is wondering whether Ronaldinho will be finally selected for the World Cup. For now we know that he won´t be in this game. Ronaldinho will have to be patient until Dunga announces his final list of 23 players for the World Cup. The media and fans have divided opinions about Ronaldinho. Some people think he does not deserve to be in the list because he just has not been playing well in last couple of years and he decided to play now that such a big event is coming. Others think he should be in the team for what he has shown in the last few months and for what he represents and did in the past for Brazil.

Dunga affirmed that Milan´s midfielder and everyone still has time and a chance to be part of the final list of 23 players.

The decisive last friendly

This friendly match will be the last one before coach Dunga announces the final list that will go to the South African World Cup, to face North Korea on June 15th. Brazil is currently ranked 2nd behind Spain in the FIFA ranking and will play Ireland, who did not qualify for the World Cup due to that controversial hand ball of a certain French player. Ireland is ranked 37th. Both teams have met 5 times before, where Brazil has defeated the Irish in 3 occasions, whereas the Irish have only defeated the South Americans once and tied once.

Coach Giovanni Trapattoni is concerned that Irish striker Robbie Keane will miss the match against Brazil due to right knee pain, he had planned Keane to mark Kaka closely.  Instead striker Anthony Stokes of Hibernian´s Scotland will replace him.

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