Brazil captain Neymar will be part of the home nation’s Olympic football squad at Rio 2016, the team’s coach Alexandre Gallo said Friday.

“I’ll be calling up three players over 23, well, two in fact, as one of those will be Neymar,” he said in an interview with Arena Sport TV.

“We can’t think about Brazilian football without considering a star of his level.”

Barcelona forward Neymar will be 24 when the Olympics come around.

Ever since taking over the role of Olympics coach in July, Gallo had expressed his intention to pick the mercurial striker.

“Neymar is a figurehead. It would be difficult to imagine Argentina at the Olympics without (Lionel) Messi or Portugal without Cristiano (Ronaldo),” added Gallo.

“On top of that, he (Neymar) is a reference for our players. He trains very hard and he’s someone who loves us and will help us a lot.”