SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti raised doubts about whether Neymar will be in his squad for the 2026 World Cup. The Italian has yet to pick the former captain since he took over in May.
“If Neymar deserves to be (in the squad), if he is, well, better than others, he will play in the World Cup and that's it. (But) I don't have debts to anyone,” Ancelotti said at a press conference in Washington on Friday following the draw.
Brazil is in Group C with Morocco, Haiti and Scotland.
“If we speak about Neymar, we have to speak about other players,” Ancelotti added. “We have to think about Brazil with or without Neymar, with or without other players. Our final list we will make after the FIFA fixtures in March.”
The 33-year-old Neymar has never fully recovered from a torn ACL in October 2023 during a World Cup qualifier against Uruguay. But he's been key for Santos in its fight to avoid relegation in the Brazilian championship.
On Wednesday, he scored a hat trick for Santos despite a muscular injury. He is expected to play again on Sunday against Cruzeiro.
Ancelotti said Brazil does not have a “referential player” at the moment, a tag for the most valuable player that Neymar has mainly worn since the 2014 home World Cup.
“We have one of the world's best goalkeepers, some of the best defenders, top midfielders and some players up front. I don't want players who want to be the best in the world, I want players who want to win the World Cup,” Ancelotti said.
Asked about his team's group, Ancelotti said Brazil can top it.
“We can win all three matches, our idea is very clear. We need to be competitive during the entire World Cup. Our goal is to play in the final and for that to happen you need to face very strong teams anyway.”
Brazil won the last of its five World Cup trophies in 2002.
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Brazil's coach Carlo Ancelotti arrives for the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Dan Mullan/Pool Photo via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tyler Adams has set a bold goal for the U.S. soccer team, aiming to reach the World Cup semifinals for the first time since the inaugural tournament in 1930.
“Everyone’s going to want us to say winning it is obviously the goal,” the American midfielder said Friday after the World Cup draw, "but I think setting the benchmark of the furthest the U.S. team has gone is also realistic.”
The 14th-ranked U.S. will start Group D against No. 39 Paraguay on June 12 in Inglewood, California, and then play 26th-ranked Australia six days later at Seattle. The Americans conclude the group stage on June 25 back at SoFi Stadium against the winner of playoffs among Turkey (25), Slovakia (45), Romania (47) and Kosovo (80).
"Getting three points right off right off the bat like that would be would be an amazing start for us and just put us in a great position in the group,” star Christian Pulisic said.
It appears to be among the less difficult of the 12 groups. The top two in each advance to the new round of 32 along with the best four third-place teams.
“Listen, we all want to win a World Cup," defender Tim Ream said. “You don’t play a tournament just to be there and so we’ve had conversations, Chris and I have had conversations about, yeah, we wan to win. I think people can laugh and say whatever they want.”
In recent friendlies, the U.S. lost 2-1 to Turkey in June, beat Australia 2-1 in October and defeated Paraguay 2-1 last month.
“Potentially we played all three of these teams in the last six months but that can be a little bit of a false kind of sense of security,” defender Ream said.
In nearly a century of World Cup play, the U.S. is 1-7 in knockout games, getting outscored 22-7. The Americans’ only win was 2-0 over Mexico in 2002’s round of 16, which was followed by a 1-0 quarterfinal loss to Germany. The Americans are winless in their last 12 World Cup matches against European teams, outscored 20-10.
“There’s no easy game in a World Cup. In fact, I think some of our hardest games in the previous World Cup were against the lesser opponents,” Adams said.
At the 2022 tournament in Qatar, the U.S. tied Wales 1-1 and England 0-0 before beating Iran 1-0 on a Pulisic goal to advance.
“It’s fair to say that the last World Cup we couldn’t set a bar or standard for anything. We didn’t know what to expect," Adams said. “Now looking back on it, I think we have more experience. We’re a lot more mature. We’ve grown a lot as individuals and as a team.”
Coach Mauricio Pochettino has scheduled friendlies against Belgium and Portugal in March and vs. a team to be determined and Germany just before the tournament.
As he mulls his roster, Pochettino thinks about “Miracle,” a 2004 movie he watched last month about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team of young players that upset the heavily favored Soviet Union and went on to win the gold medal. Coach Herb Brooks' decisions made an impression on Pochettino.
“We don’t need the best players, we need the right players to make a team a strong team,” Pochettino said. “The right players to build a powerful team with the possibility to fight with any team in the in the world. Good and right are completely different.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
U.S. team coach Mauricio Pochettino attends the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Dan Mullan/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. team coach Mauricio Pochettino arrives to attend the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
