After only three games of the 2025/26 Premier League season, the league has its first interval for the international break, seeing several stars like Casemiro head off to represent their respective countries.
Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot reported for duty with Portugal, however Dalot has already had to pull out of the national side due to injury, with the same happening for Matheus Cunha who had to miss out on his call up to Brazil.
However, Casemiro is still with the Brazilian national side, having played their penultimate 2026 World Cup qualifier last night against Chile.
Prior to the game, Brazil had already qualified for the finals next year, having 25 points and being out of reach of seventh place Venezuela with 18 points and only six left available with two games to go.
Now, Brazil head into their final game against eighth place Bolivia unable to catch first place Argentina on 38 points, however are still looking to hold off Uruguay and Ecuador for second-place.
Unfortunately for Carlo Ancelotti, despite avoiding a red card, he’ll be unable to field Casemiro due to a controversial booking against Chile.
It was an eventful night for Manchester United’s veteran midfielder, who nearly scored the side’s first goal of the game, heading in an early free-kick, only to be disallowed for being offside. However, Chelsea’s new signing Estevao put the Brazilians ahead, starting the goalscoring for Carlo Ancelotti’s side.
Then, on the brink of half-time, the match boiled over when Chile’s defender Guillermo Maripan was given his marching orders with a red card for a foul on Wesley Franca, only for VAR to downgrade the call to a yellow card.
Then, only minutes later Casemiro was seen stamping on Chile midfielder Felipe Loyola, narrowly missing a red card, only being shown a yellow for the offence.
Brazil ultimately went on to beat Chile 3-0, with Casemiro replaced in the 66th minute with Andrey Santos of Chelsea as the Premier League was really on show throughout the game, with other goals coming from West Ham United’s Lucas Paqueta and Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes.
Whilst Casemiro did avoid a red on this occasion, his collection of yellow card offenses have mounted to the same effect, with the midfielder unable to play their final qualifying game.
