Neymar Making the Most of Being the World Cup Poster Boy

How quickly he has grown, and how dependent a nation of 200 million people has grown upon Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. 

Neymar scored the first goal of this World Cup two weeks ago and then the 100th goal of a tournament that still has not reached its second, knockout phase. But what is remarkable about Neymar is that he not only lives with the stardom and the expectancy placed on his slender shoulders, he embraces it.


Put simply, he is the poster boy of this global event. His face is on countless billboards in city centers, his image bathed in bright lights just as the statue of Christ the Redeemer was lit up in the national colors of yellow, blue and green above Rio de Janeiro on the opening night of the tournament. 

Anywhere else, it might seem sacrilegious to do that. Any other land, perhaps, would think twice before putting such faith in one individual in what, after all, is a team sport. 

Neymar seems unfazed by it all, almost as if he were born for this level of public acclamation. It is in a sense like watching Andy Murray when he became the first Briton to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936 — except that Murray was 26 and in the prime of his career when he made his breakthrough a year ago. 

Neymar Júnior — christened with that name because his father was also a professional soccer player — turned 22 in February. He is but a youth, compared with Cristiano Ronaldo, 29, and Lionel Messi, who celebrated his 27th birthday on Tuesday. 

Ronaldo and Messi are in the prime of their careers, the time when age and experience gel. Ronaldo is suffering from knee tendinitis and burdened by carrying a Portuguese team that is not playing up to his standard. Messi vomited on the field during the last game he played, against Iran, with some wondering if he were feeling the stress of carrying a team that was expected to go far. 


Neymar is burdened by 10 times the expectations facing Ronaldo and Messi, yet if he notices it at all, he appears to revel in the responsibility. Fame, he explained to journalists years ago, is what he wants from life. It is a reason — one reason anyway — to play this game. 

The four goals he has scored at this World Cup take his tally to 35 goals (and 22 assists) in his 53 Brazilian national team games so far. They have invariably been the difference between winning and losing. The pair of goals Neymar struck against Cameroon came before and after his opponents shoved him in the back, nearly pushing him into a collision with the mass of photographers who lined the side of the field, many with their lenses trained on him.

 

Neymar smiled, enigmatically, in the face of this aggression. He has suffered worse already, and that will likely continue as his career progresses. At about 5-feet-9 and 140 pounds, he appears vulnerable to the brute force applied by some opponents. 

But he has his speed, his extraordinary balance, his sublime movement and a sixth sense of how to avoid the shoves in the back or, worse, the tackles that could break his leg. He has been doing it ever since the family moved to Santos, the club that nurtured Pelé and Gilmar and so many other of the great Brazilian talents. 

Pelé, the king of soccer players, has acknowledged Neymar as his heir apparent. But Pelé also has warned that it is dangerous to depend so heavily on one man who is still developing. And when you meet Neymar in the flesh, when you see him in his street clothes, he appears unremarkable, even slightly ungainly as he walks with a seemingly uneven gait. 

In late 2011, Neymar met Messi in the final of the Club World Cup in Yokohama, Japan. If Messi was already the world’s top player at that time, Neymar was no more than an apprentice. 

Messi scored twice as Barcelona hammered Santos, 4-0, and at the end, when the young Brazilian walked up to Messi to ask for his shirt as a memento, there was an almost paternal embrace from the older Argentine. An embrace between players who were destined to become partners in the Barcelona attack after the club acquired Neymar last year. 

But even that did not come easily. Sandro Rosell resigned as Barcelona’s president earlier this year amid questions about how much the Neymar transfer had really cost and where the money had gone. Neymar seemed serene amid the storms. His efforts to dovetail alongside Messi in Barcelona have not always run smoothly, and it still will take time and sacrifice for the team to get the best out of both of them when they play in the same lineup. 

The people now in charge at the club, the new president Josep Maria Bartomeu and the new coach Luís Enrique, see the future built around two of the world’s outstanding stars. 

That is for another time in another place. Right now, Messi is Argentina’s main hope, Neymar is Brazil’s main man, and their paths might well cross in another final — in the last game of the World Cup on July 13. 

From now until then, both these South American soccer powers will hold their breath and pray that their star players stays healthy. The dependency is greater on Neymar because he is on home turf and because he is so evidently the main inspiration to his team. 

If anything happened to Messi, at least Argentina has Sergio Agüero, Gonzalo Higuaín, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Rodrigo Palacio to call on at striker. 

Brazil has Neymar. Period. 

Cheack out Neymar Jr. Photos