Neymar’s tears worry Brazilians
Rio de Janeiro, June 23: Brazilians watched their team’s excruciatingly hard- fought win Friday over minnow Costa Rica in a cold sweat but it was Neymar’s hot tears that really made the footballingmad nation sit up.
“Neymar’s crying is the big news,” declared the Blog do Menon on the leading UOL Esporte website.
The world’s most expensive footballer had just scored the second of Brazil’s two extra- time goals, finally subduing Costa Rica’s stubborn resistance — and getting a monkey off the star- studded team’s back.
At the final whistle, the striker — described as a genius by his coach Tite and a petulant brat by his
many detractors -- sank to the turf, sobbing. Later, Neymar tweeted that “these were tears of joy, of having overcome.”
“It’s one of the big images of the World Cup: Neymar, alone, collapsed and in floods of tears,” the UOL Esporte blog said.
“These were the tears of a football player. The tears of someone who cares.”
In this generous interpretation, Neymar’s 97th minute goal was the moment when the Paris Saint- Germain scoring machine finally got his groove — and the muchhyped Brazil team along with him.
But many asked if so much emotion after beating a supposedly far inferior team pointed to crackups to come?
“It’s not normal to cry in the second game of a World Cup,” Brazil’s biggest newspaper, O Globo, headlined the main article on its website after the drama.