Brazil have one of the most enviable selection problems in international soccer. Elite Brazilian players are spread across the country’s domestic competitions, Europe’s leading leagues and clubs throughout the wider global game, giving the national-team coaching staff access to a talent pool that few nations can match. Yet having more options does not necessarily make selection easier. In many respects, it makes the process considerably more complicated.
Ahead of Brazil’s final international camp of 2026, the Brazilian Football Confederation has deployed members of Carlo Ancelotti’s technical staff across domestic, South American and European competitions to watch potential international players live. The observation schedule has included matches involving Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan, Fluminense, Palmeiras, Grêmio, Corinthians and several other clubs, with the scouting programme feeding directly into the next senior squad announcement on 29 October.
The timing is significant because Ancelotti has already demonstrated that the current selection process is open. Brazil’s previous camp included nine players receiving their first senior call-ups, and the head coach subsequently indicated that additional younger players would be evaluated during the next stage of the programme. The objective is not simply to replace established internationals with younger ones, but to expand the number of players the staff understand well enough to consider seriously when competitive selection decisions become more difficult.
That distinction is important. National-team scouting is not simply about identifying the best Brazilian players in club soccer. The real challenge is determining which players can perform the specific functions Brazil require within Ancelotti’s game model.
A midfielder can be outstanding for his club but unsuitable for the role the national team needs. A full-back producing impressive attacking numbers may play within a club structure that protects him very differently from the way Brazil intend to defend. A winger recording goals and assists may operate primarily in transition when the national team requires someone capable of solving problems against compact defensive blocks.
International selection therefore requires more than asking who is playing well. It requires understanding why they are playing well, what tactical environment enables those performances and whether those qualities can transfer into a different team with considerably less training time.
For Brazil, the challenge is not finding talented players. It is turning an enormous talent pool into a balanced international squad.
The Best Player Is Not Always the Best Player for the Role
Traditional squad discussion tends to organise players through positional labels: goalkeeper, centre-back, full-back, midfielder, winger and striker. Those descriptions remain useful, but modern tactical systems increasingly require a much more detailed understanding of what players actually do within those positions.
Two central midfielders can occupy the same nominal position while performing completely different functions. One may specialise in receiving from the centre-backs and controlling build-up under pressure, while another is most effective progressing forward, attacking the penalty area or aggressively pressing after possession is lost. Comparing them simply because both are listed as midfielders can therefore become misleading.
The same problem occurs across almost every position.
One full-back may provide width and repeated overlapping runs, another may move inside alongside the midfield, while a third remains deeper to protect defensive transition. A centre-forward may function as a penalty-box finisher, a reference point for direct play, a channel runner or an attacker who drops into midfield to connect possession.
National-team coaches therefore need to scout roles rather than labels.
ISSPF’s Soccer Scouting & Recruitment in the Modern Game examines why modern talent identification increasingly combines technical, tactical, physical, psychological and contextual information. The strongest scouting processes do not ask only whether a player is good; they ask whether that player’s qualities solve the particular football problem the team needs to solve.
That principle is especially relevant for Brazil because of the sheer size and variety of the available player pool.
A Brazilian player competing every week in England experiences a different tactical and physical environment from one playing in Serie A in Brazil. A midfielder operating in Spain may encounter different pressing structures from a player in Italy, while a winger performing for one of Europe’s dominant possession teams may rarely experience the defensive responsibilities required by another tactical system.
The scouting staff therefore need context around every performance.
Goals, assists, pass completion and duel success can help create the initial picture, but those numbers are meaningful only when connected to where, when and why the actions occurred.
A player completing 92% of his passes may appear extremely secure in possession, but the figure becomes more valuable when analysts understand whether those passes were performed under aggressive pressure, whether they broke opposition lines and how frequently the player received facing forward.
Likewise, a defender producing a large number of interceptions may have excellent anticipation, or the number may partly reflect a team that spends long periods defending without the ball.
Data needs football interpretation.
The ISSPF Performance Analysis in Football framework emphasises the importance of combining individual analysis with tactical context. Performance analysts can identify recurring behaviours, movement patterns and decision-making tendencies that raw outputs alone cannot fully explain.
This is one reason Brazil’s current programme of live observation remains important despite the enormous amount of video and data available to elite national teams.
Live scouting provides a different perspective.
Television and tactical video generally follow the ball. A live observer can watch what the player does when the ball is 40 metres away, how quickly they react when possession changes, whether they communicate with teammates and how their positioning changes as the tactical situation develops.
The scout can observe the player’s behaviour after mistakes, their relationship with the coaching staff and the intensity of actions that may not appear in a statistical report.
None of this means live observation should be considered superior to data or video.
The strongest process combines all three.
Data can efficiently identify players whose outputs match a defined role. Video allows analysts to examine those behaviours repeatedly and against different opponents. Live scouting can then provide additional contextual information before the coaching staff make a final evaluation.
Brazil’s challenge is to connect these different sources of evidence into one consistent selection process.
The Game Model Should Tell the Scouts What to Look For
Scouting becomes much more effective when the team already knows what it wants.
Without a clear game model, selection can become a collection of talented individuals rather than the construction of a functioning squad. Coaches may select several outstanding players who prefer the same spaces, or discover after the camp begins that important tactical functions are missing from the group.
A clear playing model provides the scouting department with a reference point.
The ISSPF Game Model Development in Soccer describes a game model as the framework connecting the coach’s playing principles with the behaviours trained and reproduced during competition. That same framework can guide player identification because it defines what the team actually requires from each role.
If Brazil intend to press aggressively high up the field, scouting must examine more than attacking output. Wide players may need the physical capacity and tactical discipline to close passing lanes repeatedly, while midfielders need to recognise pressing triggers and protect the spaces created behind the first pressure.
If the team intends to dominate possession against lower defensive blocks, different qualities become important. Players must receive in restricted spaces, recognise overloads, play between defensive lines and create solutions when there is limited room to attack behind the opposition.
If attacking transition remains a major weapon, speed becomes valuable, but so does the ability to recognise when the transition opportunity exists. The fastest player is not automatically the best transition player if their decision-making regularly causes attacks to break down.
The game model therefore converts scouting from a general talent search into a search for specific capabilities.
ISSPF’s Modern Soccer Coach’s Blueprint makes this connection particularly clear: player profiles should match the physical and cognitive demands of the playing model, rather than selection being driven exclusively by generic talent indicators.
For Brazil, positional versatility could become another important factor because international squads are limited in size and preparation time.
A player capable of functioning effectively in two related roles can provide significant value. A defender who operates as both a centre-back and full-back may allow the coach to change structure without making a substitution. A midfielder comfortable as both a single pivot and within a double pivot creates different tactical possibilities, while an attacker capable of playing centrally and from the side can help the team adapt during the match.
Versatility, however, should not be confused with simply having played several positions.
The key question is whether the player understands the functions associated with each role.
This is where video analysis can become particularly useful. Analysts can examine whether the player demonstrates the same decision-making principles across different club structures and identify which behaviours appear genuinely transferable.
National-team scouting also needs to assess how quickly a player can learn.
A club coach may have several months to introduce tactical ideas. An international coach can sometimes have only a handful of meaningful training sessions before competition. Players who understand information quickly and recognise tactical pictures without repeated instruction can therefore hold considerable value.
This is difficult to quantify from match data alone.
Interaction during camp becomes part of the scouting process.
The nine newcomers selected in Brazil’s previous squad were not simply being given international appearances. Ancelotti and his staff were able to observe how they trained, how quickly they understood tactical information, how they interacted with established internationals and whether their club qualities transferred into the national-team environment.
The camp becomes an assessment centre.
This is one reason friendly international windows can be extremely valuable when used deliberately. The objective is not simply to produce a result but to gather information that cannot be obtained from club scouting alone.
Brazil’s previous camp gave the staff approximately two weeks to work with a substantially altered group, and Ancelotti subsequently described the experience as valuable in providing a clearer understanding of several newcomers.
The next squad does not therefore need to contain another nine changes simply to demonstrate commitment to renewal.
Good scouting should reduce unnecessary change.
Once the coaching staff gain confidence in a player’s suitability, the next phase becomes building relationships and tactical continuity rather than permanently cycling through new names.
The challenge is creating competition without creating instability.
Building a Player Pool Is Different From Picking a Starting XI
One of the most important distinctions in national-team planning is the difference between identifying the best current eleven and building the strongest possible player pool.
The starting team matters immediately, but a national-team programme requires alternatives capable of solving different tactical problems and replacing players whose form, fitness or club circumstances may change rapidly.
A strong player pool therefore needs depth by function, not simply depth by position.
If the preferred right winger is unavailable, the replacement does not necessarily need to reproduce every characteristic of the first-choice player. The coaching staff may decide that the alternative provides a different tactical solution. What matters is understanding how the overall structure must change as a consequence.
That type of planning becomes particularly important across a long international cycle.
Club circumstances can change dramatically within months. A regular starter may transfer and lose playing time, while a previously peripheral player can move into an environment that accelerates their development. Injuries alter availability, tactical trends change and younger players emerge.
The national-team selection process therefore has to remain dynamic without becoming reactive.
One excellent club month should not automatically outweigh two years of evidence, but reputation should not protect a player indefinitely if their performance no longer meets the requirements of the national team.
This creates one of the most difficult responsibilities for the head coach: balancing current form, proven international performance and future potential.
A player performing exceptionally well at club level deserves attention, but international selection still needs to consider tactical fit. An established international may remain valuable even during a temporary dip in club form because the staff already understand how that player operates within the national-team environment.
A younger player may not yet be superior overall but could possess a specific quality the squad currently lacks.
Selection becomes an exercise in weighting evidence.
The ISSPF article on Data Science and Implementing New Technologies in Soccer describes how role-based profiling can improve recruitment decisions by comparing players against others performing similar tactical functions rather than treating every player within a broad positional category as directly equivalent.
The same principle can be applied to international selection.
Brazil’s analysts could define the key behaviours required for each role, identify players producing those behaviours consistently and then use video and live observation to understand whether the outputs reflect genuine tactical suitability.
The final decision remains a coaching decision.
No algorithm should select the Brazil national team.
Data should reduce blind spots, help organise a huge player population and challenge subjective assumptions. It should not remove professional judgement.
This balance between evidence and expertise is especially important in international soccer because the player’s club environment can significantly affect the numbers being evaluated.
A striker playing for a dominant side may receive far more penalty-area service than one playing for a lower-ranked club. A centre-back in a high-possession team may record fewer defensive actions because their team spends less time defending. A midfielder playing in a highly structured positional system may produce very different movement data from an equally capable midfielder operating in a transition-heavy league.
The question is always what the behaviour tells us about the player.
That is why Brazil’s current live scouting programme is notable.
The technical staff are not simply waiting for algorithms to generate a list of highly rated Brazilian players. They are watching them across different competitions and tactical contexts, attempting to understand which qualities could become useful within the senior national team.
The upcoming matches against Japan and Singapore provide another opportunity to test those decisions. Japan can present the Brazilian staff with a highly organised tactical opponent, while the wider camp gives newcomers further time inside Ancelotti’s methodology before the international programme closes for 2026.
The objective should be to finish the year with a clearer map of the available talent.
Who can control build-up under pressure? Which defenders can protect large spaces? Which midfielders can change the direction of attack quickly enough? Which wide players contribute both attacking threat and defensive work? Which forwards can perform against deep blocks as effectively as they do in transition?
Equally important is identifying where the pool remains thin.
Elite scouting is not only about discovering options. It should expose weaknesses in squad depth early enough for the coaching staff to continue searching.
Brazil's enormous talent base can sometimes create the illusion that every position automatically contains several elite alternatives.
That may not be true once the game-model requirements become more specific.
A country can have ten excellent midfielders but only two who naturally perform the role the coach needs.
The value of systematic scouting is identifying that distinction before an important match exposes it.
Brazil’s current approach therefore provides a useful lesson for coaches and analysts far beyond international soccer. Selection should begin with identity. Once the coach understands how the team wants to play, the scouting process can define the technical, tactical, physical and psychological characteristics required to deliver it.
Data can narrow the search, video can provide detailed tactical evidence, and live observation can add context. Training camps then provide the final opportunity to assess whether the player can translate club performance into the new environment.
This is why national-team scouting is about much more than finding the country's most talented footballers.
It is about building a squad in which individual talent can function collectively.
For coaches and analysts interested in developing this process further, ISSPF’s Soccer Scouting & Recruitment in the Modern Game, Performance Analysis in Football and Game Model Development in Soccer provide practical frameworks for connecting player profiling, tactical analysis and team methodology.
Brazil will never struggle to generate names for a squad discussion. The harder task for Ancelotti and his staff is deciding which combinations of those players create the most complete team.
The best national-team scouting process is therefore not the one that discovers the largest number of talented players. It is the one that understands exactly which talent the team needs, why it needs it and whether the player can reproduce those qualities when wearing a different shirt in a different tactical environment.
Keywords:
Carlo Ancelotti Brazil, Brazil national team squad, soccer scouting, player profiling soccer, football talent identification, performance analysis soccer, national team selection, soccer game model, data scouting soccer
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How are players selected for international soccer?
Carlo Ancelotti Brazil squad selection
How do national teams use performance analysis?
Player profiling in professional soccer
How does a game model influence player selection?
Live scouting versus data analysis in soccer
How do coaches select players for a national team?
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