Real Madrid's Marcelo drafted for Brazils U-20 team

The Brazilian Football Federation (CBF) announced on Friday that Spain Real Madrid's wingback Marcelo was drafted for the South American Youth Championship 2007, which will take place during Jan. 7-28 in Paraguay.

The Brazil U-20 national team will first meet on Dec. 11. Practices and friendly matches are scheduled in the states of Acre, in the North of the country, and Mato Grosso, in the Mid-west, while three days off are all that is reserved for Christmas.

The Youth Championship is a playoff for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007, to be held from June 30-July 22. If the national team scores enough points to classify for the competition, they will gather twice more to get prepared, from March 1-13 and from May 3- 15. On June 14, they will join the Cup.

Marcelo coincidently participated in his first practice at Real Madrid on Friday. Two weeks ago, the Spanish club paid 6 million euros to his former team Brazil Fluminense to hire the player.

At first, Marcelo will play for the club's B-squad Castilla, which takes part in the second division of the Spanish League.

The national team head coach Nelson Rodrigues also announced that UK Arsenal's midfielder Denilson was drafted for the Youth Championship. The names of the other 18 players of the roster will be released on Tuesday Dec. 5.

Source: Xinhua