Sao Paulo: Football coach Mano Menezes believes Brazil has a team good enough to win its first gold medal at the London Olympics.
Brazil has a "quality group" of Olympic-aged players capable of winning the only significant soccer competition it hasn't yet won, Menezes told Brazilian channel SporTV while inspecting the team hotel in London on Friday.
"I have a lot of confidence in the team that we will bring to London," he said. "We will have a team capable of fighting from the start to try and win the Olympics."
Among the players set to make the trip are Neymar, Paulo Henrique Ganso, Lucas, Leandro Damiao, Oscar, Inter Milan's Philippe Coutinho, Tottenham's Sandro, AC Milan's Alexandre Pato and Manchester United's Rafael and Fabio.
Uncertain
It remains uncertain if Menezes will be able to summon all of them to the Olympics. Clubs are not obligated to release players to the tournament, which is not on the international calendar.
Brazil won the Olympic silver medal in 1984 and 1988, and the bronze in 1996 and 2008.
In Brazil's 2-1 win against Bosnia in an exhibition on Tuesday in Switzerland, Menezes summoned only eight under-23 players — Neymar, Alex Sandro, Danilo, Rafael, Lucas, Sandro Ranieri, Ganso and Leandro Damiao.
"We have a quality group of under-23 players, but it hasn't been possible to fully observe all of them in matches so far," Menezes said. "We prioritised those we thought we needed to observe."
Final stage
Brazil will face Denmark in an exhibition in Germany in May, but Menezes is still unlikely to summon a squad solely with Olympic-age players. He will likely use more of them when Brazil tours the United States to play the host on May 30, Mexico on June 3 and Argentina on June 9.
"The time we will have in the United States will allow us to stay together for some 20 days, that will be a good first step," he said. "Then we will have a final stage of preparations with only the players who will come to the Olympics. Without a doubt we will use this time to try to improve important aspects of our team."
