Brazil’s talisman fit to face Costa Rica

Neymar will start for Brazil against Costa Rica despite suffering an ankle issue earlier this week, with coach Tite insisting he does not want the “genius” to alter his style.

The five-time World Cup winners had as care on Tuesdaywhen ney mar hobbled out of training, yet he was back for Wednesday’s session and will feature against Los Ticos after Tite confirmed he would name an unchanged XI.

That is despite Brazil having been held to a 1-1 draw by Switzerland in their opening fixture, when the world’s most expensive footballer Neymar had an unusually quiet night.

There were rumours Tite had spoken to the 26-yearold in the wake of that draw to implore him to be more teamoriented, yet the Brazil coach shot that suggestion down in his pre-costa Rica press conference.

“Absolutely not. The information you got is not true, it’s not true; it didn’t happen,” Tite declared. “All the players have the responsibility of playing for the collective and also being individuals, some with some specific characteristics.

“Neymar, I’m not going to take away from him this initiative in the last third of the pitch. He’s a genius. You have my word, this is not true.” Costa Rica have faced Brazil in two previous World Cups – suffering defeats in 1990 and 2002 – but Bryan Ruiz believes the 2014 quarter-finalists are now a different proposition.

“We respect Brazil very much but we have developed a lot,” said Ruiz. “During this World Cup we have seen many surprises, as we saw in the previous World Cup – anything is possible in football.

“We have played against Brazil twice and we’ve never won but we played well. Third time is a charm!”