By Fernando Kallas
TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – Brazil midfielder Bruno Guimaraes and defender Alex Telles suffered injury scares in the first full training session completed by the five-times World Cup winners in Turin on Wednesday.
The 25-year old Guimaraes, who was celebrating his birthday, left the practice field for several minutes to receive medical attention after forward Rodrygo stepped on his right foot.
He returned to the session limping and looking uncomfortable, but completed it with his team mates.
Telles received a rough tackle from behind by Neymar and also needed medical assistance. Brazil coach Tite ordered the practice match to stop for a few moments, before Telles returned to the action.
Brazil’s technical staff stressed that they wanted to assess the physical condition of the players when they reported for international duty on Monday.
After two days of light training at the Juventus facilities, where Brazil are holding a five-day camp before flying to Qatar on Saturday, Tite ran his first full practice with all the 26 players in the World Cup squad taking part.
Defender Marquinhos, who missed training on Tuesday with an undisclosed injury that also ruled him out of Paris St Germain’s 5-0 win over Auxerre on Sunday, joined his team mates for the second half of the session.
Brazil decided not to play a friendly as part of their preparations for the tournament starting next week and they have more practice sessions on Thursday and Friday before heading to Doha.
Brazil begin their World Cup Group G campaign against Serbia on Nov. 24 before facing Switzerland and Cameroon.
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, editing by Ed Osmond)
