Brazil support divided over superstar N
Forward’s talent may yet shine through but even back home they are split over his behaviour
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER in Moscow
It was February on the Bate-bola football show on Espn-brasil and the presenter, Joao Carlos Albuquerque, was leading a discussion on whether Neymar’s broken metatarsal on his right foot would rule him out of the World Cup, when they received an unexpected call.
The caller was Neymar Santos snr, father, agent, PR man and general architect, for good or for bad, of his son’s career. Neymar snr was eager to explain why it would be better for his son to have the operation on his toe, which he eventually did, going through rehabilitation to miss Paris St-germain’s doomed Champions League campaign, but recover in time to be part of Russia 2018.
At the time, he launched into a monologue about his son’s injury, ruling out PSG’S hope that he may be able to recover without surgery and said that he would be back by the end of April – although Neymar never played again for his club that season. Then Neymar snr put the phone down and it was only through a good deal of cajoling that they managed to get him back on the line for a conversation that made headlines around the world.
The Neymar camp, and in particular his father, are notoriously sensitive to criticism and it would be fair to say that, at this World Cup finals, there has been a lot of it. Neymar is the most famous footballer left in the tournament, but it has been hard to tell at times in Russia – less jogo bonito, more like a high-profile politician parachuted into hostile territory to help fight an exhausting but crucial by-election.
The criticism has mostly been about the 13 minutes 50 seconds of the four games Neymar has played at Russia 2018 that, according to a study by the Swiss broadcaster RTS, has been spent by him prostrate on the turf. Be that wincing, complaining or the occasional rolling over and over at the approximate pace of a tumbledryer on medium setting. The round-of-16 game against Mexico accounted for 5min 29sec of the total alone. He has also scored twice, adding to his mountainous international stats of 57 goals in 89 caps, although those numbers do not quite tell the whole story.
Neymar goes into today’s quarter-final against Belgium in Kazan as the most fouled player in the tournament – 23 suffered over four games. Neymar has also had the most attempts on goal (23), compared to Harry Kane’s nine for a return of six goals in one fewer match. He has lost the ball more than any of his peers (37) and he has dribbled into the area 16 times, more than Eden Hazard (nine), Lionel Messi (seven), Cristiano Ronaldo (six), Luis Suarez (five) and Kylian Mbappe (three).
The numbers suggest that Neymar regards Brazil’s possession as something chiefly he gets to squander or exploit, although this is far from a one-man team.
Brazil have not looked so solid defensively in recent years as they do now, having conceded just once all tournament, against Serbia.
They have so far coped with injuries to Dani Alves before the tournament, to Danilo and Douglas Costa since then and a centreforward, Gabriel Jesus, who has not scored in four games.
Nevertheless, Neymar promises to fulfil a key component of Brazil’s tradition, that being the individual supremacy of a single player, a category that they have not dominated for the best part of a