Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 8y

Real Madrid's Marcelo 'cannot do whatever he wants' - Brazil's Dunga

Brazil coach Dunga says that he has stopped calling up Real Madrid left-back Marcelo for the national team due to the players' bad attitude and false public comments.

Marcelo was not included in the Selecao squad for March's World Cup 2018 qualifiers against Paraguay and Uruguay, despite being fit to play for Madrid at the time, and was also left out of the panel for the summer's Copa America Centenario in the United States.

A debate over the omission has become increasingly embittered, with Los Blancos coach Zinedine Zidane talking of "lies" coming from the Brazil camp, and a national team doctor becoming embroiled in a petty-sounding dispute over comments made from both sides.

Speaking to SporTV, the 1994 World Cup-winning captain said that his problem with Marcelo stemmed from comments the player had made following a 2-0 World Cup qualifier defeat against Chile last October.

Marcelo had claimed that Brazil's poor showing had been partly due to a lack of preparation time.

"[Marcelo] cannot do whatever he wants, just because he is a good player," Dunga said. "He must be careful about what he says. There are players who are hurting themselves because they create headlines which are not true.

"Apart from his technical ability, a player must be committed and behave well. I will not say everything here, you just have to look at what happened after the Chile game, just after our arrival, and then you can understand everything."

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