On Friday, in Fortaleza, Brazil’s national football team will play their fellow South Americans Colombia in the World Cup quarter-finals. With Brazil being the host nation, the pressure will be felt by each and every member of the team, but one man will be feeling it more than anyone: Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, known to millions around the world simply as Neymar.
At just 22 years old, it’s fair to say that he’s carrying the hopes, dreams and aspirations of millions on his slender shoulders. After Brazil’s match against Chile last week, the team was left a collective emotional and physical wreck – several players broke down in tears at the end, and Neymar was battered and bruised, having been carried off the pitch twice after incurring injuries to his thigh and knee, before scoring the decisive penalty shoot-out spot-kick that helped to take his team into the last eight. Pressure? Neymar, more than most 22-year-old men, knows all about that, and he thrives on it.
Brazil’s current team is one of mixed abilities, particularly when compared to the samba boys teams of the past, and Neymar has undoubtedly been the most consistent and impressive performer. Brazil, everyone knows, are in with a chance of winning the trophy, but equally everyone knows that without him the team is unlikely to make it through to the next stage.
“I do not feel burdened with the obligation to be the highlight,” he said last week. “I have colleagues who help me. Some win the ball, others give passes, others score goals. We are a team. It’s not about one player. Here, the important thing is that Brazil are champions.” Even at such a tender age, when he could perhaps be forgiven for letting all that fame and adoration go to his head, Neymar appears to be all about teamwork and helping his compatriots share the glory. Raw talent aside, it’s little wonder that he’s so popular.
Media savvy, he’s a prolific poster on Instagram, having uploaded more than 2,200 photographs, and has amassed a following of more than 7.4 million people. As a gauge of his astonishing popularity, there are dozens of other accounts purporting to be him, and these, too, have tens of thousands of followers. Everyone wants a piece of this young man; everyone wants to know about the minutiae of his life, to get to know a little bit more about him and feel somehow connected.
This ever-increasing popularity cannot just be explained by his goal count since he turned pro in 2009. "He's a player whose ability to change speed and direction is augmented by astonishing ball skills," wrote J Mauricio Melgar in Time magazine last year. "There's an unaffected effervescence to his game, a refreshing change from the calculated efficiency of European soccer that has infected the Latin American leagues since the 1980s. In an era of pass-and-move, Neymar is not afraid to keep the ball, dribble and weave past his opponents rather than simply figure out the most effective way of moving it forward. It's too early to say if he's as good as Pelé, but he certainly plays with the King's sense of sheer joy."
Even those ambivalent about the game could certainly end up agreeing with these sentiments once they’ve seen Neymar in action. Like a football-playing Michael Jackson, Neymar’s legs seem almost to move with supernatural independence from the rest of him. He’ll look another player in the eye and perform a dance so quick it’s almost a blur, toying with the opponent, who can never guess in which direction the ball will leave his boot. It’s almost poetic. He’s a superstar but, unlike many, he seems to feed off the adoration as if it’s his duty to perform and delight those who ultimately line his pockets.
Born in Mogi das Cruzes, a factory city municipality of São Paulo, Brazil, on February 5, 1992, to Neymar da Silva Sr and his wife, Nadine Santos, football was a pivotal aspect of life from the earliest of times. Neymar Sr had been, in his time, a professional footballer, although, by his own admission, he was “not a player of high quality”. When it became clear to him that he’d never make it as a professional footballer, Neymar Sr moved the family (his wife and the two children, Neymar Jr and his younger sister) back to his hometown of São Vicente, where they moved in with Neymar Sr’s parents.
“We weren’t starting at zero – we were starting at minus-five,” Neymar Sr has said of the experience. He took on three jobs to keep the family’s finances afloat – civil servant, bricklayer and car mechanic – while Nadine found work as a cook at a childcare centre. For four years, they laboured; all the while, Neymar Jr was starting to develop his own footballing skills – something lost on his father, who was so busy earning a crust that he hardly noticed.
When Neymar Jr was just 7 years old, a recruitment officer from a local indoor football team paid them a visit. Word was out: Neymar Jr was possessed of a very obvious talent, playing whenever, wherever and however he could. He just wanted to play football, even if the “turf” was smashed up concrete and the goalposts were someone’s shoes, and he was able to take on much older children and beat them. It’s something that never left him. “I just like playing with the ball,” he said in a recent interview. “I always have. I play on the street even now. When we’re on vacation – it doesn’t matter where – I will go and look for a game.”
He quickly made a name for himself on the junior circuit and, by the time that Neymar Jr was 11, his father realised that there was a potentially stellar career for his son, so he assumed the role of manager and devoted himself to full-time nurturing, handling the demands of the clubs desperate to sign him up. Ultimately, it was the Santos youth team that he plumped for, at the age of 14. Real Madrid, one of Europe’s most illustrious clubs, and one that many of Neymar’s fellow Brazilians have played for, also wanted him, but Neymar Sr reckoned that they were better off staying put for the time being.
“We’re from a humble family, and in a humble family there is always the question of cultural values,” he said of the decision to stay in Brazil. “We thought he had to grow up in Brazil. That was the first serious choice we had to make.” The family did actually visit the Spanish team, but returned home so Neymar Jr could rise through the ranks in a more progressive, organic career. It was back to Santos, but it wasn’t long before national and international fame came knocking.
In 2010, before a game one afternoon, Neymar and a friend decided it would be a good idea to give themselves new hairstyles. He was 18, young and carefree, and, as he played around with the clippers, he chose to go for something akin to a Mohawk – a style more commonly associated with 1970s punk rockers. When he emerged onto the pitch, his father nearly passed out with anxiety, but Neymar Jr scored two goals while sporting his faintly ridiculous new hairstyle and became an instant national hero. His changing cuts have been a feature of his public image ever since.
That year, he scored 42 goals in 60 matches for Santos, and his fame spread through Brazil like wildfire. He was a national celebrity. While he’d heeded his father’s warnings about not getting involved with narcotics or alcohol, by the age of 19, he had become a father – something that the strict Catholic country just couldn’t cope with; the media and public speculation and prying into his personal life took on a whole new level. Neymar Jr had a son, named David, and despite the intense news coverage and constant intrusion, he said that becoming a father, even at that young age, was a joyous experience. “Everything in my life has happened very early, personally and professionally,” Neymar said in an interview with The New York Times two years ago. “I’m always learning. I have to.”
Neymar turned 20 on February 5, 2012, and, on that day, he scored his 100th goal as a professional player. Understandably, international clubs were beating a path to his door, but he stuck to his father’s plan. Like many other sporting stars, such as Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton and the Williams sisters, Neymar’s father has been a guiding light and a constant presence in his professional life. “It was hard to stay in Brazil,” said Neymar Sr in 2012. “But we are achieving, we are doing this, at least until he matures. Then we will go out and show the world.”
While many others would have absconded to Europe for big bucks at the first opportunity. Neymar Jr was contracted with Santos until this year. That time came, however, and he was signed for five years by Barcelona in 2013 for a reported €87.2 million (Dh437.5 million), which is currently the 11th most-expensive transfer ever. When Barcelona unveiled him, 56,500 fans turned up – a record number for a Brazilian player.
He's wasted no time in spending like a pro – an analysis in Forbes magazine two years ago suggested that, with his taste for expensive property, cars and yachts, he could even end up bankrupt. But that was pre-Barcelona, pre-World Cup. And, as Forbes admitted, Neymar should be making enormous sums of money for a good 10 years yet. It's unlikely that Neymar Sr will be worrying too much about the family coffers these days.
He’s still growing up, that’s for sure, but Neymar’s place in the canon of footballing greats is already assured. If he works his magic tonight, and if Brazil end up winning the World Cup on their own soil, the sky really will be Junior’s limit.
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