Neymar: Football’s Most Gifted Entertainer and the Persistent Question of What Full Fitness Could Have Delivered
Superstars · Brazil
How many goals has Neymar scored for Brazil, and will he play at the 2026 World Cup?
Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior was born on February 5, 1992, in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo. He came through Santos FC’s academy and announced himself to the world with a style of play — direct, inventive, technically extravagant — that made comparisons to Pelé and Ronaldinho immediate and unavoidable.
At Santos, Neymar won back-to-back Copa Libertadores titles in 2011 and 2012 and announced himself as the next great Brazilian forward before signing for FC Barcelona in 2013. Alongside Messi and Luis Suárez in the MSN front three, he won the Champions League in 2015, scoring the third goal in the final against Juventus. It remains the peak of his European club career.
His world-record move to Paris Saint-Germain in August 2017, for a reported fee of €222 million, was supposed to make him the undisputed leader of a club project built around winning the Champions League. It never quite delivered that outcome, partly because injuries — fractured metatarsals, ankle surgeries, an ACL tear — repeatedly interrupted his seasons at the most critical moments.
Despite those setbacks, Neymar’s impact on Brazilian football has never been in doubt. He surpassed Pelé’s all-time scoring record for the national team in 2023, becoming Brazil’s greatest international scorer with more than 79 goals. He won Olympic gold with Brazil in 2016 and was at the centre of World Cup campaigns in 2014, 2018 and 2022.
After recovering from the ACL injury that ended his 2023-24 season at Al Hilal, Neymar has publicly backed young Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal as a future Ballon d’Or winner and Champions League champion — an endorsement that underlines his continued authority as a voice in the game even as his playing time has reduced.
The question his career leaves open is compelling: in a body that stayed fully fit for entire seasons, what scoring and creative records could he have reached? As it stands, the combination of what he achieved and what he promised makes him one of football’s most fascinating and irreplaceable figures.