Brazil in throes of rebuilding

The South Americans are not taking Iran lightly in tonight's friendly in Abu Dhabi, with superstars Daniel Alves, Robinho and Alexandre Pato taking centre stage.

Robinho, with ball, shows off the sort of skills in training last night that should be on show at Zayed Sports City tonight.

ABU DHABI // Superstars Daniel Alves, Robinho and Alexandre Pato will take centre stage in a youthful Brazil squad for tonight's friendly international against Iran at Zayed Sports City.

Brazil, still reeling from their unexpectedly early quarter-final defeat by Holland at this year's World Cup finals in South Africa, are undertaking an extensive rebuilding operation to ensure that they peak in good time to put on a solid show on home soil in four years time.

Mano Menezes, recently installed as the latest coach of the five-time world champions, has been given a fair degree of latitude by his federation's normally impatient hierachy to blood as many new players as he can before the flamboyant South Americans welcome other leading football nations to their football-mad country.

Mano has been told to forget the long-standing dictate that Brazil have to win every match in order to experiment in his early days as coach.

Last night he was putting his restructured squad through their paces in advance of tonight's game. However, the old win-at-all-costs approach remains uppermost in the minds of the more experienced members of the squad, despite the softer brief given to Mano.

Robinho, the AC Milan forward, believes victory tonight is what matters as he said: "We must respect them like other national teams. It will be a difficult match for us. We should focus primarily on winning."

Sandro, the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, sees the match as being important to Mano and the players as they continue to gel together as a unit.

He said: "This time working together is useful because we have big goals for the national team in the coming years."

Five Brazilians are likely to win their first senior caps at some stage of the fixture. Wesley, the Werder Bremen forward, accompanies the home-based quartet of Elias, Neto, Guiliano and Mariano as Brazil try to follow the successful example of Germany last summer in forming a new-look squad for the World Cup.

Those newcomers will seek to blend in with the more familiar figures of Robinho, the former Manchester City striker, Pato, his Milan teammate, Alves, the Barcelona defender and Lucas, the Liverpool midfielder. Alex, the formidable Chelsea centre-back, will miss the match after picking up a thigh injury during Sunday's Premier League win against Arsenal.

Rodrigo Paiva, the director of communications of the Brazil FA, said: "When our president announced the appointment of our new coach he urged our many of supporters back home to accept that we would not always win."

Nevertheless Brazil are not expecting any setbacks on neutral UAE territory tonight against their Iranian opponents. Mano is counting on a second victory to follow his debut win away to the United States and to precede what he hopes will be a hat-trick of early triumphs against Ukraine in England on Monday when they play in Derby.

Mano said through an interpreter: "The main idea is to integrate players who play in Brazil with those who play in Europe to form a new team who it is hoped will be strong when the World Cup takes place in our country in 2014."

* With agencies