Brazil defender Thiago Silva admits he is disappointed that Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo will not be available to face his side on Tuesday, The Paris Saint-Germain stopper, fresh from the Selecao's 6-0 friendly win against Australia on Saturday, had hoped to come up against the 28-year-old following his devastating hat-trick against Northern Ireland on Friday but has been ruled out because of tendinitis.
"I'm not happy that he [Cristiano] is out. It's always a sad thing to see a fellow footballer getting injured. We had that today with Marcelo. A player of Cristiano's calibre should always be fit to play, because that makes any match automatically better."
David Luiz, who partnered Silva at the back on Saturday believes Ronaldo's absence gives Brazil impetus.
Brazil bounced back from the Switzerland defeat with an emphatic victory over the Socceroos, with goals coming from Jo, Neymar, Ramires, Alexandre Pato and Luiz Gustavo. Silva will expect to be tested much more in Tuesday's friendly than he was on Saturday but insisted that credit must be given to the way Luiz Felipe Scolari's men defended as well as attacked.
"We didn't have a difficult life today because of how well our defence worked, it's important to highlight that," he continued. "Let's not say that they didn't make it past our back line because of their lack of quality, but because we did a very good job at keeping them from it. We had a really strong man-marking [system]."
