Militao threatens Thiago Silva’s status in Brazil

After Brazil’s second training session in Le Havre (France), where they faced Ghana yesterday, O Globo reported that Tite planned to put Militao at right back (as it finally happened). The madridista reacted quickly by giving this information a like on his networks, a gesture that he linked to a short but forceful text: “Always soon!” (“Always ready!”). These days, coach Tite handles the same dilemma with Militao as Ancelotti with Rüdiger. He feels that he is a regular, but he has a hard time fitting him into the team. If to put Rüdiger in the eleven Ancelotti has to undo the defense that has made him European champion and the League in the same season, to make Militao the starter, Tite would have to seat Thiago Silva, the true soul and captain of the canarinha.

LThe emergency solution has been to make room for Militao on the side (he has only brought one more right-hander to this call, Danilo), but something much deeper underlies the atmosphere of the journalists who follow the team these days: the sorpasso from Militao to Thiago (to form a couple with Marquinhos) is about to be confirmed, if it doesn’t already happen at the next World Cup in Qatar.

Balancing on the wire, Tite is therefore in a position as sensitive as defense. And to top it all off, Thiago is taking over sports venues in his country these days not only because he has just turned 38 (with a brilliant career in which he has distributed 739 games between Porto, Dinamo Moscow, Fluminense, Milan, PSG and Chelsea), but also because yesterday he surpassed the 108 games of another historical defender, Lucio, and is close to the top-5 in the ranking of participations in the brilliant history of the canarinha. “Thiago will be a good coach, and that’s bad for football”, Tite has joked these days. “Because he makes things so easy when they’re really hard as hell! He always makes the best decisions…”.

Military, key piece.

All in all, Tite is clear that more than a future, Militao is already present for the national team. And he prefers him as a center back rather than a right-back. The madridista has played 22 games with Brazil under the guidance of Tite himself: 17 have been as a central defender, two as a right-back and three as a left-back.

Tite knows take care of your captain, Thiago Silva, with wide influence in the locker room. His classmates call him ‘little old man’, sometimes ‘grumpy’, because of what he rules in the booth and how seriously he takes his work. But the coach is also full of praise for Militao: “He is a player with impressive speed and technical ability. In one on one he is tremendous”. And that is the great doubt of him in the eleven.