| PROBABLE LINEUP |
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BRAZIL
 Neto Rafael, Silva, Juan, Marcelo Sandro, Romulo Oscar Hulk, Damiao, Neymar |
EGYPT
 El-Shenawy Fathi, Hegazy, Gaber, Milo Hassan El-Din Ahmed, Aboutrika Mohsen, Motaeb, Salah |
Brazil's preparation for their opening match against Egypt hit a bit of a hiccup when first-choice goalkeeper Rafael Cabral was ruled out of the tournament with a bruised elbow.
Fiorentina’s Neto will start in place of the Santos custodian, while 19-year-old AC Milan shot-stopper Gabriel steps in as second choice ;span>Atletico Mineiro’s Renan Ribeiro is on standby.
Aside from that, Brazil are likely to remain unchanged from their easy victory over Team GB, with the only question mark potentially being Alexandre Pato replacing Internacional’s Leandro Damiao, who had a poor match against Stuart Pearce’s men.
The injury to Rafael may be a minor inconvenience to Brazil, but Egypt have struggled to even play matches since February when a match between Al-Ahly and Al-Masry ended in a riot which killed 70 people.
Football in the country has been halted indefinitely since the incident due to fears that the catastrophe may be repeated, while the national team have only played a small number of games behind closed doors at home in recent weeks, being based in Uruguay and France before then.
In terms of their team they do not have any injury news; however, the Egyptian assistant coach hinted that the three over-age players - Emad Motaeb, Ahmed Fathi and 2008 BBC African Footballer of the Year Mohamed Aboutrika - are not guaranteed starting places against Brazil on Thursday.
| DID YOU KNOW? |
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Brazil ;strong>Egypt have faced each other seven times in their history but the Africans are yet to pick up a win.
- The last competitive meeting between the two sides was at the Confederations Cup in 2009. Brazil ran out 4-3 winners with Luis Fabiano, Juan and a Kaka double securing the win despite a Mohamed Zidan-inspired fight back.
- Brazil’s lead-up to the Olympics has been mixed with a straight forward 2-0 win over Great Britain coming after a 2-0 defeat at home to Mexico, and then a 4-3 loss to bitter rivals Argentina.
- Egypt’s two most recent matches saw the full senior side lose 4-3 on aggregate to Central African Republic after losing 3-2 at home and only managing a 1-1 draw away in Bangui.
- Marcelo and Alexandre Pato (pictured right) have played more matches at Under-23 level than the rest of their team-mates with six appearances each.
- Brazil’s three over-age players at the tournament are Thiago Silva, Marcelo and Hulk. Emad Motaeb, Mohamed Aboutrika and Ahmed Fathi are Egypt’s senior representatives.
- Only goalkeepers Neto and Gabriel have not been capped at full international level for Brazil. William Hill offer 9/5 for both teams to score in this game.
- Aboutrika is the most experienced player at international level in both squads, with 91 caps for his nation.