Guilherme: "There's no obvious #1 in Team Brazil"

In an exclusive interview with "Our Loko" magazine the Brazilian goalie shares his secrets of fighting Moscow infamous traffic jams, comments on the return of manager Luiz Felipe Scolari to the Brazil national team and speculates whether his country is ready to host World Cup 2014 by the time it arrives.

"It's +35 centigrade in my home city now"

- What have you been thinking about recently, waking up and looking out of the window?
- This weather doesn't shock me anymore. I got used to the snow in Moscow in late November - early December. This year, my wife was even waiting for it to fall. And when the fresh snow came, she rushed into the street to take pictures and email them to Brazil. Naturally, it's very exotic for our friends and relatives there.

- This weather made driving in Moscow even more complex. Can you remember the most dreadful traffic jam you got stuck in here?
- Yes, two years ago I spent three hours in the car trying to get from my house to the stadium. But now I'm experienced and when it snows heavily we stay at home and avoid going to the city centre. Or wait until 8 or 9 p.m. when roads are not that loaded.

- Have you ever seen snow before coming to Russia?
- Never. I was born in the city of Cataguases, 250 kilometres off Rio de Janeiro, and even the winter temperature seldom drops below +18.

- What's the weather threre now?
- It's summer in Brazil now, so it's about +35. It's a huge contrast and every time we fly there Lokomotiv doctors give us special immunity-boosters.

"I'm not sure Brazil will be done with all the infrastructure problems by World Cup-2014"

- Last week the Brazil national team knew the name of it's new manager - Luiz Felipe Scolari. What do you think of this news?
- I can't say I was surprised. It was Scolari who made us world champions last time, in 2002. He's a very experienced coach and he knows how to win in big tournaments. Although I wouldn't say Brazil are the strongest in the world now, not like 10 years ago. We've been through a change of generations recently and many bright young players came to the team. Scolari's main objective now is to make a team out of them.

- Why did they fire Mano Menezes?
- I think his main problem was lack of experience. And the results of the two latest fixtures upset the federation. We drew tie with Columbia and lost to Argentine.

- Did this swap somehow influenced your chances of making it to the national team?
- No. But I'm sure if Lokomotiv make it to Europe again, I will have a chance. There's no obvious #1 in Team Brazil now. Lots of keepers tried their luck in the team: the guys from the Brazilian clubs Atletico Mineiro, Botafogo, some from the European - Diego Alves from Valencia, Julio Cesar from QPR. In short, this position is vacant.

- After Hulk had moved to Zenit, did the Russian Championship gain in popularity in Brazil?
- Sure. Hulk is a starter in the national team, and he attracts a lot of attention. They even show some games of the Russian Premier-League on Bazilian TV, but not every weekend, - they only pick top games, so they total in about 10 games a year.

- With just a year-and-a-half left until World Cup-2014 in Brazil, the wires say a lot of infrastructure is still not ready.
- If you mean stadiums construction, the delays there are minor. But the works on all the other infrastructure really lag behind. At least when I went to Brazil in summer, I didn't really notice changes. The airport in Rio de Janeiro is still uncomfortable. They planned to build a new air terminal, but it's still on paper. So there're still flight delays simply because the airport's old infrastructure is overloaded. When you fly to Rio you are always late: the plane has to circle above the city and wait till a strip or a parking lot is free.