Gabriel Jesus has travelled to Brazil for international duty despite not playing for Arsenal in nearly three weeks.
The striker injured his hamstring playing for Arsenal against Sevilla in the Champions League on October 24.
Jesus has been undergoing his rehabilitation with the Gunners after that and has missed all their matches since then, including Saturday’s 3-1 win over Burnley.
The striker was nonetheless called up by Brazil last week and he has now travelled to link up with the squad in South America.
Brazil have World Cup qualifiers against Colombia on November 17 and Argentina on November 22, and they hope Jesus will be fit for them.
Jesus will be assessed by Brazil’s medical team and a decision will be made as to whether he can play.
Under FIFA rules, Brazil are entitled to call up Jesus and assess him themselves - as England did with Bukayo Saka last month.
That, however, was a different situation as Saka merely had to drive up from London to England’s base at St. George’s Park, whereas Jesus has flown to Brazil.
When naming his Brazil squad last Monday, manager Fernando Diniz hinted they would call up Jesus to assess him themselves.
“In the last call-up, we hadn’t called up [Gabriel] Martinelli, from Arsenal,” he said. “He didn’t report to the CBF (Brazilian Football Federation) in a very complete way, so we didn’t imagine that Martinelli would be ready to play against Venezuela and Uruguay, and he was ready to play before our games.
“Because of this too, we are going to bring Gabriel [Jesus] to find out the real conditions, because we still have 15 days until the games, so we believe that he can be able to play, because I like him a lot.
“We have 24 players on the list, and if something happens to him we won't need to change the squad.”
Diniz’s reference to Martinelli appears telling. Ahead of the last international break, Brazil did not call up the Arsenal winger as he was out injured with a hamstring injury.
Martinelli, however, days later went on to score the winning goal against Manchester City after coming off the bench.
The winger missed Brazil’s game against Venezuela and Uruguay to stay at Arsenal and work on getting back to full fitness. He has been called up this time.
