Neymar

#1In January 2025, Neymar went back to Santos.

#2He was 32. He would wear No. 10, the number forever associated there with Pelé.

#3Almost everything else had changed.

#4When Neymar left Santos in 2013, he was 21 and looked like a future best player in the world. Barcelona wanted him. Real Madrid had wanted him for years.

#5When he returned, he was coming from Al Hilal after making just seven competitive appearances in roughly a year and a half.

#6In between, he'd won Europe with Lionel Messi, become the subject of the most expensive transfer in football history, spent six seasons trying to bring the Champions League to Paris Saint-Germain, reunited with Messi, moved to Saudi Arabia, and torn the ACL in his left knee.

#7The player once valued at €222 million had come back to his first great club.

#8So how did his career loop all the way back here?

#9Neymar grew up in Brazil with his father, Neymar Sr., his mother Nadine, and his younger sister Rafaella.

#10For a time, the four of them shared a single room in his grandmother's home in São Vicente.

#11His father had been a footballer too, just nowhere near the level his son would eventually reach. He had to take other work to help support the family.

#12Neymar, meanwhile, kept playing.

#13He played outside. He played futsal. He learned to escape pressure in tiny spaces, change direction instantly, and treat defenders almost like obstacles in a game.

#14His father recognized the talent early, but he didn't behave as if professional football were guaranteed. Education mattered too. If the dream failed, Neymar still needed something underneath him.

#15Then, while Neymar was barely a teenager, one of the biggest clubs in the world appeared.

#16Real Madrid.

#17Agent Wagner Ribeiro helped get the young Neymar a trial in Spain.

#18Neymar impressed.

#19Real Madrid wanted to keep him. The proposed package wasn't just about football. It could have transformed the family's life: schooling, housing and support for his parents were all part of the opportunity.

#20Europe was already open to him.

#21And yet Neymar came home.

#22By his father's account, the boy was struggling with being away from his mother and sister in Brazil. Santos was also fighting to keep its extraordinary prospect and improved the situation around the family.

#23It's too neat to reduce the decision to one thing.

#24Homesickness mattered.

#25Family mattered.

#26Money and Santos' response mattered too.

#27What matters most is what happened next.

#28Neymar didn't become a Real Madrid academy player.

#29He became Neymar of Santos.

#30Neymar made his Santos first-team debut in March 2009 at 17.

#31His father later remembered the moment almost like a handover of identity. Until then, he had been known through the family nickname as Juninho's father.

#32After the debut, he became Neymar Jr.'s father.

#33His son's world was expanding very quickly.

#34Then came one of the first signs that the person inside the phenomenon hadn't caught up yet.

#35In 2010, 18-year-old Neymar wanted to take a penalty against Atlético Goianiense. Coach Dorival Júnior ordered another player to take it instead.

#36Neymar reacted badly.

#37His behavior toward the coach caused a national controversy. Dorival wanted stronger disciplinary action. Santos, meanwhile, didn't want its most important young star sidelined for long.

#38The person who ultimately left wasn't the 18-year-old.

#39It was the coach.

#40But another scene happened at home.

#41Neymar later said he found his mother crying.

#42Nadine told him this wasn't the son she'd raised. She wanted her old "Juninho" back. His father cried too.

#43Neymar said the moment hit him hard. He later admitted regret over his behavior and guilt about Dorival losing his job.

#44The footballer had become enormous.

#45The person carrying all of it was still eighteen.

#46European clubs kept coming. Chelsea was among them.

#47Neymar stayed at Santos.

#48In 2011, that decision produced the achievement that changed the scale of his reputation.

#49Santos reached the Copa Libertadores final against Peñarol. Neymar scored in the decisive second leg.

#50Santos won the trophy.

#51It was the club's first Libertadores title since 1963.

#52The previous Santos era associated with that trophy belonged to Pelé.

#53Now a 19-year-old Neymar was holding it.

#54"The next Pelé" was still an absurd burden to put on a teenager.

#55But it was no longer a comparison based only on tricks and hype.

#56Then came the Club World Cup final later that year.

#57Santos faced Barcelona.

#58And Barcelona had Lionel Messi.

#59The result was brutal.

#604–0.

#61Barcelona overwhelmed them.

#62Afterward, Neymar acknowledged that Barcelona had shown Santos how football should be played.

#63About a year and a half later, he joined the team that had just taught him that lesson.

#64Neymar moved to Barcelona in 2013.

#65Even the transfer became a spectacle. Questions over its financial structure turned into legal and tax disputes and eventually contributed to president Sandro Rosell's resignation.

#66But the more interesting problem was on the field.

#67Messi was already there.

#68In Brazil, Neymar had become the player everyone looked toward.

#69At Barcelona, he entered a club already built around one of the greatest players football had ever seen.

#70The adjustment wasn't effortless.

#71Neymar later recalled a period early in his Barcelona life when things felt overwhelming and he cried after training. Messi came over and reassured him, telling him he'd struggled at the beginning too.

#72The person who might have seemed like Neymar's greatest obstacle helped him settle in.

#73Then Luis Suárez arrived.

#74Messi.

#75Suárez.

#76Neymar.

#77MSN became one of the most devastating front lines football had seen.

#78In 2014–15, Barcelona won La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League.

#79The treble.

#80Neymar scored the final goal of the Champions League final.

#81He finished that season with 39 goals in 51 matches.

#82Later that year, he placed third in the Ballon d'Or voting behind Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

#83Neymar wasn't failing in Messi's shadow.

#84He was winning almost everything.

#85That's what made the next decision so difficult to understand.

#86In the 2017 Champions League round of 16, Barcelona lost the first leg to Paris Saint-Germain 4–0.

#87The tie looked finished.

#88Then came the return match at Camp Nou.

#89Barcelona kept scoring, but late in the game they still needed something close to a miracle.

#90In the 88th minute, Neymar scored a free kick.

#91In the 91st, he converted a penalty.

#92Then, deep into stoppage time, Neymar lifted a ball into the box and Sergi Roberto finished it.

#936–1.

#94Barcelona had completed one of the most famous comebacks in Champions League history.

#95And Neymar had driven the final minutes.

#96A few months later, PSG came for him.

#97This time it wasn't just transfer gossip.

#98Messi and Suárez tried to convince him to stay.

#99Gerard Piqué posted a photo with Neymar and two famous words:

#100"Se queda."

#101He's staying.

#102Even Neymar Sr. would later say he preferred his son to remain at Barcelona.

#103Neymar left anyway.

#104PSG paid the full release clause.

#105€222 million.

#106The largest transfer fee football had ever seen.

#107It was still the record in 2026.

#108That's the most famous explanation.

#109Neymar didn't want to spend his prime as Messi's No. 2. He wanted his own team, his own path to the Ballon d'Or, and a better chance to be recognized as the best player in the world.

#110Contemporary reporting around the transfer absolutely included that interpretation.

#111And it made sense.

#112Neymar was 25. He'd already finished third in the Ballon d'Or. At PSG, an entire project could be shaped around him.

#113But Neymar's own explanation was different.

#114He said he wanted a new challenge and new trophies. He rejected the idea that he had simply fled Messi's status or moved only for money.

#115There probably isn't one clean answer.

#116A team that could revolve around him.

#117The Champions League.

#118The possibility of becoming the world's best player.

#119A staggering financial package.

#120A new challenge after winning almost everything in Barcelona.

#121All of those things could coexist.

#122What is certain is that Neymar walked away from the safest successful situation of his career.

#123And the reason the move became so controversial wasn't that he suddenly forgot how to play football.

#124His first season in Paris produced 28 goals and 16 assists in 30 matches.

#125Across his PSG career, Neymar finished with 118 goals and 70 assists in 173 official appearances.

#126At Barcelona, he'd played 186 matches and scored 105 goals across four seasons.

#127So the idea that PSG destroyed his football doesn't really survive the numbers.

#128When Neymar played, he was still devastating.

#129The strange number was somewhere else.

#130Four seasons at Barcelona: 186 matches.

#131Six seasons at PSG: 173 matches.

#132He spent two more years in Paris and still played fewer games.

#133The problem wasn't what happened when Neymar was on the pitch.

#134It was how often he wasn't there.

#135In February 2018, Neymar injured his right foot against Marseille.

#136A fractured metatarsal.

#137He needed surgery.

#138PSG were in the middle of a Champions League tie with Real Madrid. They had lost the first leg 3–1, but still had the return match in Paris.

#139Neymar couldn't play.

#140PSG went out.

#141The following season, the same area of his right foot was injured again.

#142This time PSG faced Manchester United in the Champions League round of 16.

#143Neymar missed both legs.

#144PSG won 2–0 at Old Trafford, then collapsed at home and were eliminated.

#145In 2021, the draw produced Barcelona.

#146The club Neymar had left.

#147The club he had later tried to return to.

#148Messi's club.

#149Neymar missed both legs through injury.

#150Then in 2023, another major ankle problem required surgery and ended his season. PSG went out to Bayern Munich in the round of 16.

#151PSG hadn't paid €222 million primarily to dominate France.

#152The dream was the Champions League.

#153And too often, when that project reached the nights that were supposed to define it, Neymar was watching instead of playing.

#154But even that explanation has limits.

#155There were nights when Neymar was healthy and PSG still failed.

#156In 2019, Neymar tried to go back to Barcelona.

#157Only two years after leaving the teammates who had begged him to stay.

#158Barcelona explored the return. Neymar wanted it. But the clubs couldn't make the deal work.

#159So he stayed in Paris.

#160Then came the 2019–20 Champions League.

#161Neymar scored against Borussia Dortmund.

#162Against Atalanta in the quarterfinal, he kept pushing as PSG drifted toward elimination.

#163Paris came back.

#164They won the semifinal too.

#165For the first time in the club's history, PSG reached the Champions League final.

#166Bayern Munich stood between Neymar and the trophy he'd gone to Paris to chase.

#167PSG lost 1–0.

#168After the match, Neymar cried.

#169He sat near the bench as Bayern's David Alaba came over to console him.

#170It's hard to fit that scene neatly into a story about a player who only moved for money, or only left because of ego.

#171He'd reached the final.

#172He'd wanted the trophy.

#173And he'd lost it by one goal.

#174A year later, the story twisted again.

#175Barcelona's financial crisis forced Messi out.

#176His destination?

#177PSG.

#178Neymar had left a team with Messi in order to build a different career in Paris.

#179Now Messi was coming to Paris to join Neymar.

#180Neymar was delighted.

#181They played together again.

#182But there was another superstar beside them now.

#183Kylian Mbappé.

#184When Neymar arrived at PSG, Mbappé was 18. Neymar initially occupied something close to an older-brother role.

#185Then Neymar kept missing stretches through injury.

#186Mbappé won a World Cup.

#187He grew.

#188And PSG's center of gravity began to move.

#189Their relationship wasn't permanently hostile, but it stopped being uncomplicated. Mbappé would later describe things between them as sometimes hot, sometimes cold.

#190At Barcelona, Neymar had lived beside an older superstar who was already larger than him.

#191In Paris, a younger superstar was growing beside him.

#192And in 2022, PSG had Messi, Neymar and Mbappé available against Real Madrid.

#193They still went out.

#194So the other comforting explanation—that a healthy Neymar would have solved everything—didn't work either.

#195By 2023, PSG itself was changing direction.

#196Messi left.

#197Luis Enrique arrived as coach.

#198The club was moving away from the model of collecting enormous superstar contracts, and Neymar was no longer central to the new plan.

#199At 31, he chose Al Hilal.

#200Saudi Arabia.

#201PSG received a reported fee of around €90 million. Neymar received an enormous contract.

#202It would be silly to explain the move while pretending the money didn't matter.

#203It would also be misleading to say money explains everything.

#204PSG wanted to move on too.

#205Neymar talked publicly about a new challenge and about the rapid growth of Saudi football.

#206Either way, another chapter was supposed to be beginning.

#207Two months later, it almost disappeared.

#208October 17, 2023.

#209Brazil were playing Uruguay in a 2026 World Cup qualifier.

#210Late in the first half, Neymar went down after a challenge.

#211The damage was in his left knee.

#212The diagnosis was severe.

#213A torn anterior cruciate ligament.

#214Damage to the meniscus.

#215Surgery.

#216And there was an important detail.

#217This didn't happen while Neymar was playing for Al Hilal.

#218He was injured playing for Brazil, in a match on the road toward another World Cup.

#219The rehabilitation took close to a year.

#220He finally returned for Al Hilal in October 2024, then suffered another muscular problem soon afterward.

#221From the summer of 2023 until January 2025, Neymar made only seven competitive appearances for the Saudi club.

#222There was barely enough football to judge the experiment.

#223Then Al Hilal and Neymar agreed to end the contract.

#224He had to choose again.

#225Santos was waiting.

#226Neymar returned to Santos.

#227The club where he'd first become famous.

#228Pelé's club.

#229The place that had kept him in Brazil when Real Madrid first opened the door to Europe.

#230But this wasn't only nostalgia.

#231Neymar still had a target.

#232The 2026 World Cup.

#233He hadn't played enough in Saudi Arabia. After such a serious knee injury, he needed real minutes, rhythm, and evidence that his body could still survive competitive football.

#234Santos handled him very differently from the teenage prodigy they'd once launched toward Europe.

#235Back then, the question was how quickly Neymar could rise.

#236Now the question was how carefully he could be rebuilt.

#237At 17, Santos had been preparing him for the world.

#238At 32, Santos was trying to make him a functioning footballer again.

#239Slowly, Neymar started playing.

#240He scored.

#241He assisted.

#242He accumulated minutes.

#243And eventually, the Brazil door opened again.

#244The 2026 World Cup arrived.

#245Neymar was in Brazil's squad.

#246It was his fourth World Cup.

#247Against Scotland, he came on in the 76th minute.

#248It was his first Brazil appearance in 981 days.

#249Almost three years had passed since the night his ACL tore against Uruguay.

#250The player people had written off was actually back on a World Cup field.

#251But this wasn't the Brazil team he'd once carried.

#252The attack no longer revolved around Neymar.

#253Vinícius Júnior and a younger generation had moved to the front.

#254Neymar wasn't the 22-year-old expected to solve everything anymore.

#255And Brazil's tournament didn't last long.

#256Brazil faced Norway in the round of 16.

#257Neymar didn't start.

#258Brazil fell two goals behind.

#259He came on in the second half.

#260Deep into stoppage time, Brazil won a penalty.

#261Neymar took it.

#262Goal.

#263But it only made the score 2–1.

#264The match ended.

#265Brazil were out.

#266Neymar's international record stood at 130 appearances and 80 goals.

#267As a boy, he'd been labeled the next Pelé.

#268By FIFA-recognized senior international goals, he'd surpassed Pelé.

#269But he never reached the achievement most inseparable from Pelé's name.

#270A World Cup title.

#271Zero.

#272After the tournament, Neymar said his time with the national team had passed and indicated he no longer wanted to continue with Brazil.

#273His final World Cup wasn't a triumphant ending.

#274It wasn't a perfect comeback.

#275But one thing had happened exactly as he'd hoped when he returned to Santos.

#276He became a Brazil player again.

#277He made it back to the World Cup.

#278His international career may be finished, but Neymar remained at Santos.

#279He kept playing after the World Cup.

#280He created goals and contributed assists.

#281Then, on September 2, 2026, against Palmeiras, something went wrong again.

#282This time it was his right thigh.

#283He came off at halftime.

#284If you want Neymar's career to end as a beautiful redemption story, you can stop at the moment he returned to the World Cup after 981 days.

#285If you want it to be a story of wasted talent, you can stop at the €222 million PSG move or the seven games for Al Hilal.

#286The real career refuses to fit either version cleanly.

#287Neymar won the Copa Libertadores with Santos.

#288He won the treble with Barcelona and scored in a Champions League final.

#289He scored 118 goals for PSG and helped take the club to its first Champions League final.

#290He scored 80 times for Brazil.

#291He played in four World Cups.

#292For almost any footballer, that's a career beyond imagination.

#293Yet Neymar is still followed by a different question.

#294Couldn't there have been more?

#295Maybe that question survives not because Neymar achieved too little, but because he showed too much, too early.

#296Real Madrid wanted him at 13.

#297At 19, he was being compared with Pelé.

#298At 23, he was a European champion beside Messi.

#299At 25, he became the most expensive footballer ever.

#300Against expectations like those, even €222 million and 80 international goals can somehow feel incomplete.

#301In September 2026, Neymar is back at Santos.

#302Back where the wider football world first learned his name.

#303He's made it all the way back to a World Cup and is still playing, while once again waiting to see what his body will allow next.

#304When the ball reaches him, there's still a reason to watch.

#305The uncertainty is whether his body will let the next moment happen.

#306Neymar Sr. was there before the fame, before Barcelona, and before the €222 million transfer. He helped bring his homesick teenage son back from Real Madrid, then became one of the central figures managing Neymar's career and business life. Yet when Neymar decided to leave Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, his father reportedly preferred that he stay. How did the father who spent years steering Neymar's career eventually have to watch his son make the biggest decision of all against his advice?