Newcastle United midfielder Bruno Guimarães had barely joined the national team when he had a thigh injury diagnosed. That immediately took him out of the training sessions, with the player missing the friendly match against Ghana on Friday.
There was, however, some insistence from the 24-year-old to stay at Brazil’s camp and try to feature in their second game, which is being played against Tunisia tonight.
The reason for that is this is the last match before the World Cup, and the Newcastle player wants to convince manager Tite that he should have a guaranteed spot at the tournament.
So in the coach’s last press conference, this was a subject, with him pointing out what he told Bruno Guimarães about missing out on the final game.
“Every game some situation surprises you, a high level performance. On top of a whole context it can give (a surprise). I’ll give you an example, Bruno Guimaraes was with us, he wanted to recover and play again, but the club asked him to return,” said Tite (via Globo Esporte).
“He came to tell us that he was in a dilemma of staying, and he even came to tell us that he’d like us to decide. I looked at him and said: “No, this assignment is yours, as maturity and growth, what brings you to the national team is high performance with health, this will bring you to the national team. How engaged you are, we know.”
“So the faster he’s back at the club, the more chance he’ll be here, because I don’t know if in a couple of months Arthur will be at the level he was at the Copa América, where he was chosen as one of the best players.”
Newcastle now travel to London to face Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday. The initial reports from Brazil claimed Guimarães should work to be fit in time for that match, although we should wait and see Eddie Howe’s stance on this injury.
