Brazil national team boss Luiz Felipe Scolari has stated that he would have not thought twice about taking Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa to the World Cup. Born in Brazil, the 25-year-old striker represented the Brazilian national team into friendly matches. However, he recently turned his allegiance towards Spain after thinking that he would not have opportunities to represent the national team much. This was because Brazil not giving him much importance due to the upcoming stars like Neymar and Oscar. After having been playing in Spain for several years, he gained citizenship and started representing Spain from 2013.
Brazil have one of the strongest squads going into the 2014 World Cup but it is not the best in terms of strikers. Former Manchester city reject Jo is one of players included and this says a lot about the quality of the strikers at Scolari’s disposal. Costa’s participation in the World Cup is certainly in doubt due to the recent hamstring problem. Spain manager Vicente del Bosque is likely to turn towards Fernando Torres after seeing Costa suffer his injury in the Champions League final against Real Madrid. Dismissing suggestions that he was not ready to take Costa, Scolari stated that the 25-year-old has a lot of positive attributes that would have seen him in the Brazil squad.
“I was going to summon him for the World Cup. Was I wrong? I don’t know. He would be at the World Cup with Brazil. I talked to him twice about it. The problem is there are other interests behind it. With Diego Costa becoming a naturalised Spaniard another space [in Atletico’s squad] opened up in Europe. There’s a whole set of interests. Diego Costa would be with us. He plays as a seven, a nine, or even as an 11. People to try to run him over and go crashing. He’s strong as a bull,” said Scolari.