Eclipsed by Mbappe, Neymar faces a difficult second season

IF Neymar was wondering how Kylian Mbappe’s stunning breakthrough at the World Cup would affect his own standing at Paris Saint-Germain, a publicity photograph released by the club in late July gave him an indication.

In the composite picture, five PSG players wearing the club’s new all-white away kit look across the frame in various states of athletic anticipation.

Neymar is positioned centrally, but he is just behind Mbappe, the teenager’s left arm hooked over the Brazilian’s right as if the pair were jostling for position at a corner and Mbappe has stolen a march on his marker.

As a World Cup winner, and the player whose thrilling display against Argentina in the last 16 electrified the tournament, Mbappe has returned to Paris with a new status and his club have been quick to capitalise on it.

Last season’s PSG away shirt was the Neymar shirt – Brazil-yellow, it sold out in a month as “NEYMAR 10” jerseys were torn from the rails – but the new shirt is Mbappe’s.

PSG built the publicity campaign for the kit around the 19-year-old’s decision to change squad numbers, from 29 to seven, and his image has been plastered across their social media channels.

While the World Cup proved the making of Mbappe, Neymar returned from Russia diminished, his tournament reduced to a series of mocking memes.

A beaten quarterfinalist with Brazil, he seems no closer to winning the Ballon d’Or than when he joined PSG in that gamechanging € 222 million (RM1.02b) transfer from Barcelona a year ago.

Despite recurrent rumours linking him with a return to Spain, for now he is staying put.

“The press love to create rumours, but everyone knows how much I care about PSG,” he said last month. – The Independent