Defending champions Brazil earned their place at next year’s World Cup finals in Germany with a 5-0 thrashing of Chile in Brasilia on Sunday.

A hat-trick from Adriano and further goals from Juan and Robinho guaranteed the holders second spot in the South American qualifying group.

Argentina have already qualified while several countries are still chasing one of the two automatic qualifying spots left.

Despite being without the suspended Ronaldinho, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira brought back Ronaldo, who joined Robinho and Adriano in a three-man attack.

But it was defender Juan who put them on their way scoring on 11 minutes. Robinho doubled the lead 10 minutes later before Adriano scored twice to put the game beyond Chile’s reach within the opening half an hour.

Adriano completed his hat-trick in the final minute.

“Today we finished the first stage of our World Cup preparation, now we have nine months to focus on the tournament,” said Parreira.

“But we need to keep working hard. We still have a chance to finish the qualifying tournament in first place. That’s our next goal.”

Defender Cafu, hping to play in his fourth World Cup, added: “We got the stamp on the passport.

“Now we just need to fine tune the team to make sure we arrive at the Cup on the right foot.”

Brazil join hosts Germany, fellow South American qualifiers Argentina and Ukraine as early qualifiers for next years finals. Already qualified from Asia were Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea as qualifiers for next year’s finals.