If you think Neymar's career is a disappointment, it says a lot about unrealistic expectations
Then there's Neymar. Brazil's record goalscorer has recently returned to his boyhood club, Santos, after a fairly calamitous spell in Saudi Arabia. Inevitably, he has been on the receiving end of some lively treatment from the stands, most recently from fans of Internacional de Limeira when Santos faced them in the Paulista Championship last weekend.
After receiving some choice feedback while taking a corner, Neymar encouraged those fans to ramp up the abuse. They did. Neymar took the corner. You know what happened next.
UGASUAGSDUASGDUAGSUDGA O NEYMAR METEU UM GOL OLÍMPICO! O ADM TÁ COMPLETAMENTE MALUCO! NíO É POSSÍVEL! KKKKKKKKKKKKKK #Paulistão2025 pic.twitter.com/8S3vby2Npk
— TNT Sports BR (@TNTSportsBR) February 23, 2025
Neymar's return to Santos has not been treated by some as a glorious homecoming, but rather as a symbol of disappointment, another piece of evidence to support the idea that his career has been… if not a failure, certainly a bit of a letdown.
It's not an unreasonable charge. Some things haven't gone to plan. He hasn't won the Ballon d'Or, he hasn't won the World Cup, Brazil won their only Copa America since he made his international debut when he was injured, he went to Saudi Arabia aged 31 when he could have enjoyed another few years playing at the highest level.
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But it feels wrong to write him off as a disappointment. And if he has been, that says more about the expectation than it does about him.
Because most of Neymar's career has been played under the weight of crushing expectation. He made his senior debut for Santos in 2009, aged 17, by which time the hype machine was well underway. He had already visited Europe for trials with Real Madrid, courted by Zinedine Zidane and the rest. His father, Neymar Snr, was merrily teeing up endorsement deals, the start of what would eventually become Neymar Inc, a whole industry that trades on his image that has also meant Jnr and Snr haven't had a real father-son relationship for the better part of two decades. Kids would approach him and ask in hushed tones, 'Are you really better than Messi?'
He was almost immediately marked out as the next great hero of Brazilian football. Pele advocated for him to be part of Dunga's squad at the 2010 World Cup when he was barely 18. In 2011 he scored the goal that brought him to the worldwide consciousness, an astonishing solo effort for Santos against Flamengo that would win him the Puskas Award. That same year, he led his team to the Copa Libertadores title, their first since the 1960s, the only one they have won without Pele in the team.
UGASUAGSDUASGDUAGSUDGA O NEYMAR METEU UM GOL OLÍMPICO! O ADM TÁ COMPLETAMENTE MALUCO! NíO É POSSÍVEL! KKKKKKKKKKKKKK #Paulistão2025 pic.twitter.com/8S3vby2Npk
— TNT Sports BR (@TNTSportsBR) February 23, 2025
The following years were consumed by a combination of speculation about when he would move to one of Europe's giants, and how he would become Brazil's talisman, the player to lead them to glory and redemption at their home World Cup in 2014.
It's easy to forget how crazy things were around Neymar at that tournament. He was 22 years old and the most historically successful football nation in the world was asking him to carry them on his back. When that back was fractured, by Colombia defender Juan Zuniga's knee, his team-mates held up his shirt in tribute, as if he had passed away tragically. He was still alive, but without him they had essentially admitted their hopes weren't.
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After that, it was a cinch. All he was expected to do was become the best player in the world, measure up to Lionel Messi at Barcelona, then lead Paris Saint-Germain to their first-ever Champions League title.
He had the misfortune to emerge as a brilliant, thrilling young footballer at a time when Brazilian football was at a low ebb, when they needed a figurehead to pin all their hopes on.
People will also judge him because he couldn't do what previous greats have, which is to inspire his nation to winning the World Cup. But the idea that this should necessarily take too much shine off a player's legacy has always been a silly one. Would we think less of Messi if Lautaro Martinez and Gonzalo Montiel and Paulo Dybala had missed those penalties in 2022? Messi winning the World Cup is a great story, and provides a satisfying and complete end to his narrative, but he wouldn't be any less of a player if he hadn't. Just as Cristiano Ronaldo or Johan Cruyff or Alfredo Di Stefano aren't any less great.
But if this is a game of 'show us your medals', Neymar has a decent collection: league titles in four countries, a Copa Libertadores, a Champions League, an Olympic gold. He's also his country's all-time leading goalscorer, more than Pele, Ronaldo, Vava, Garrincha, Ronaldinho and the rest.
And then there are the intangibles. It's perfectly understandable if you don't really like Neymar: the diving, the brattish attitude, the array of stupid haircuts. But if you've watched Neymar and there haven't been dozens of moments where he made you feel joy, or remind you why you watch football, it's possible you're letting your personal distaste cloud your judgement.
Neymar did invite some of this colossal expectation on himself. He's rarely been shy about self-promotion. By leaving Barcelona for PSG in 2017, he was actively saying he wanted to be The Guy, rather than The Guy Just to the Left of the Guy. He very publicly set himself some aims that he hasn't achieved. He has been held back by injuries, scandal and bad decisions.
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But to judge him harshly by those standards ignores basically everything else that has happened in his career, or life. From when he was a boy, people expected him to become a god, Pele Mk II. All they got was a genius.
And if that's a disappointment, if Neymar's career has not lived up to the expectations we have placed upon him, that's our problem, not his.
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