NEYMAR TAKES A SHOT AT REDEMPTION
IN Neymar Jr’s family home, tears, anger and shock are subsiding and resignation takes over. Germany’s Andre Schurrle strokes the ball into the Brazilian goal and a home World Cup has morphed from opportunity into devastation. Seventy-nine minutes and seven goals into the semi-final and a wheelchair-bound Neymar decides enough is enough.
‘Screw it,’ he reportedly said. He grabbed the remote, switched off the television and turned to his friends. ‘Let’s play poker.’
The 2014 World Cup was supposed to mark Neymar’s ascent to deity status in Brazil, when his name would join the lineage of Pele, Socrates, Bebeto and Ronaldo.
Instead, a crude challenge from Colombia’s Camilo Zuniga curtailed his ambitions in the quarter-final. Neymar fractured his third vertebra and Brazil’s collective spine then surrendered to Germany.
Leaving the hospital in a wheelchair, he was told by doctors he should be grateful if he ever walked again. Neymar told the Player’s Tribune new media company: ‘I just cried at home, I would see my mum, my dad, crying — everyone sad, my friends, family ... and this, to me, has been the worst moment.’
Yet this World Cup in Russia offers redemption for Neymar and the national team. Those players recall the public response to the 7-1; how the nation’s flag was burned in one square in Sao Paulo and tear gas was needed to quell disgruntled Brazilians in Recife.
Optimism has returned. Consider these statistics: during qualification, Brazil scored more than twice as many goals as Argentina and finished ten points clear of second-placed Uruguay. Brazil went to Berlin in March and healed some scars by beating Germany, albeit in a friendly.
Neymar is now 26. He is the world’s most expensive footballer after Paris Saint-Germain spent £198million to extract him from Barcelona last summer and a reported salary of £600,000 per week. The most jaw-dropping statement on the day of his unveiling came from PSG president Nasser AlKhelaifi. The Qatari benefactor explained that before signing Neymar, he valued his club at €1billion. ‘And now it is worth €1.5bn,’ he smirked.
On the ESPN World Fame list for athletes, Neymar ranks fourth behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi. His social media following is in excess of 90million, which is over 30m more than US President Donald Trump. To some, Neymar is a true hero, a player who brings joy and pleasure to legions. To others, he is the epitome of the sport’s most rotten excesses. He is a riddle of contradictions, so just who is the real Neymar? IN the ramshackle streets of Praia Grande, some young teenagers have set up a street game. It is throwback stuff; jumpers for goalposts, shirts against skins, and for a few hours every evening, this crumbling and decaying road is their Maracana. Between the ages of seven and 14, this was home for Neymar and his family. Located on the coast, 45 minutes from Sao Paulo, children face a daily battle to extricate themselves from a life of petty crime, gang violence and drugs. Neymar very nearly did not make it that far. In Luca Caioli’s biography of the superstar, he recalls how, as a four-month-old baby, Neymar (known as Juninho by his family) was in the back of the family car when his father suffered a life-threatening accident. In the rain and fog, the vehicle was hit head-on. Neymar Sr suffered a dislocated pelvis and told his wife Nadine he was dying. Neymar Jr was thrust under his seat by the impact and was smothered in blood as part of the car teetered over the road edge with a choppy river below. Fellow drivers provided help, all three survived, and the baby only had a cut to the head from a flying piece of glass. In Praia Grande, Neymar has remained true to his roots. At No 274, Rua B, the house hand-built by his father and two friends is now occupied by a cousin. In 2014, the family opened the Neymar Institute. Only two streets from his childhood home, it is radically changing the lives of local children. Plonked between residencies that can barely be considered to be houses and battered shop fronts sits a pristine and futuristic safe haven for the area’s most deprived children. It is not an exaggeration to say the facilities are better then those at England’s most exclusive private schools.
Neymar’s initial £7m investment has provided football pitches, a swimming pool, a dance suite, volleyball courts, tennis courts and a basketball space. The institute is available only to low-income families and there are tie-ups with six local schools. Neymar and his father continue to invest £1.6m per year for running costs.
The centre director, Joel Moraes, tells The Mail on Sunday: ‘It has reduced violence levels, improved education and offered hope. We employ 125 people and at least 80 per cent of those are local.
The maximum distance kids can come is from schools within a 2km radius. In 2017, there are 1,100 kids coming here before or after school.
‘The kids see Neymar and believe a kid from a place like this can become an important person in society. It does not need to be in football. In fact, we insist they follow our full course, which is both education and multi-sport.’
Beyond sport, there is a cinema, language learning, a library and even a robot-building room. The centre also has dentists, doctors, pharmacists, cardiologists, opticians, psychologists and barbers — in essence, the Neymar Institute ensures free healthcare, education and a community hub for over 1,000 local kids.
Sponsors contribute; for example, Faber-Castell has its name in the arts-and-crafts room and in return provides stationery and school supplies. Gillette sends equipment for the in-house barbers and Microsoft has provided computers.
So when we see Neymar lining up time after time for a commercial shoot and roll our eyes, it appears the incentive is not only his promotion but also ensuring investment for his local town. IN Brazil, the obsession around Neymar is fervent. He is adored because he encapsulates the free-wheeling spirit of Brazilian football; the joy, the tricks, the ability to tease smiles and happiness with dancing feet and swerving hips.
‘A ball is like the most jealous woman in the world,’ Neymar once said. ‘If you do not treat her well, she will not love you and she can even hurt you. I love her to bits.’ Neymar was formed by small-sided futsal, where he learnt to navigate tight spaces and deceive opponents.
At Santos, he was coached by former Brazil international and Pele’s old room-mate Lima. He told
The Daily Mail in 2014: ‘He was really thin so we had to change the nutrition. He would eat a lot of junk food. Burgers. And he would drink sodas. We changed all that.’
When Caioli wrote his excellent biography, he even spoke to the director of gynaecology at the Santa Casa hospital where Neymar was delivered. He interviewed the family’s priest, Newton Gloria Lobato Filho, who tells how Neymar attended Thursday Mass and stayed for every sermon.
And for Neymar, the pull of Brazil is strong. He stayed at
Santos longer than expected, resisting interest from Real Madrid as a 14-year-old. While his father claimed Neymar hankered for home, the Spanish media stated his agent wanted extra cash.
In 2010, West Ham offered £12m and the platform for Neymar to use the club as a stepping stone in the manner of Carlos Tevez. The bid was rebuffed. Yet when Chelsea came in, only an emergency sales pitch by Santos marketing manager Antonio Neto, in which he argued Neymar could become a Brazil sporting icon to rival of Ayrton Senna, persuaded the family to remain once more.
When he was 21, however, Barcelona came in and a £49m transfer was agreed. He joined with Messi and Luis Suarez to create a devastating trio that lifted the Champions League in 2015, with Neymar scoring in the 3-1 victory over Juventus in the final.
Yet last summer, he decided to leave Messi’s shadow and walk alone at PSG. The figures are eye-watering and some accounts have his father claiming as much as £36m from the deal but the desire, also, was to stand alone.
The pressure is huge: if he does not win the Champions League with PSG or the World Cup with Brazil, many will cast him as a failure.
In Paris, it has been a testing start. His campaign was hit by injury and PSG crashed out of the Champions League at the round-of-16 stage. PSG manager Unai Emery struggled to accept Neymar’s status. Certainly, it entered prima donna levels.
Reports emerged that the forward considered himself above the manager’s exacting video analysis sessions. He was the only first-team player to miss the club’s Christmas party at Disneyland Paris.
Instead, Neymar went to Brazil, where he was pictured socialising and visiting his dentist. Talk of a transfer to Real Madrid persists.
It is not easy to reconcile the showbiz Neymar with the personality painted at home. One friend at Santos recalls how Neymar organised one birthday party where he invited every club employee, from the chef to the club president.
When it came to negotiating transfers, Caioli records suggestions Neymar even asked for a clause to be inserted that the family’s priest could have flights to Europe covered by the clubs.
Despite Barcelona’s public outcry over his departure, Neymar remains close to his former team-mates.
He often heads back for barbecues with Messi and Suarez, and recently did an interview with Gerard Pique for the Spaniard’s Player’s Tribune website.
Conversation turned to World Cup memories: ‘I was two years old (in 1994), my first memory was on the TV, one goal that Romario scored against Holland. I remember, Bebeto crosses, and he takes first time, and it’s a “Golazo!”. That’s the first one. And then second is from 2002. I watched the whole tournament and remember everything … Ronaldo….’
Now the time has come for Neymar’s own star to rise.
‘IT WAS THE WORST TIME WHEN I SAW MY MUM AND DAD CRYING’