Leeds United: Brazil start for Raphinha is bad news for Jesse Marsch
Brazil will take on South Korea on Thursday (2 June) and Leeds United winger Raphinha is set to start out wide for Tite’s side.
The national team manager has opted to go with the 25-year-old wing wizard over Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus [UOL] despite the latter winning the Premier League while the Whites only just survived on the final day.
Jesus also enjoyed a very fruitful individual season as a rejuvenated winger at The Etihad but still hasn’t shown his Brazil boss enough to warrant usurping Raphinha in the famous yellow and blue.
While most people will be glad to see one of our players getting the nod for such a significant global footballing superpower, they are the five-time World champions, after all, Jesse Marsch might not be so chuffed.
After the season Raphinha especially has had at Elland Road, the last thing he needs to be doing right now is playing more matches in difficult climates.
Seoul is a very tough place to go and play football with humidity surprisingly high compared to what you would normally expect and it can get tiring very quickly when you’re playing at such a level.
Tite will need to rotate his side and Marsch will be pleading that his man isn’t kept out on the pitch for the entire match because he needs him fit and raring to go when the new season comes around.
That readiness is particularly important this year as the 2021-22 season ended fairly late compared to the norm but the next campaign is preparing to begin much earlier due to the big break in November-December for the Qatar World Cup.
If Marsch doesn’t already have Tite’s number, then he’d better get onto Raphinha to pass it along because there is no more important player to Leeds United than the magic Brazilian.
In other Leeds United news, the incredible survival of Premier League relegation has made Tim Sherwood eat his words over a big decision the board made earlier this season.