🔙 Why would Neymar return to Brazil?

Hello! Welcome back to the Brazil Sports newsletter, brought to you by The Brazilian Report. This week, as rumors of a transfer to Santos circle, we explore why Neymar might want to return to Brazil, what went wrong in Saudi Arabia, and how his career stacks up against those of Brazil’s football greats.

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Why Neymar is keen on coming back to Santos

The city of Santos, nestled on the coast of São Paulo, is abuzz with excitement amid reports that Brazilian football star Neymar could be about to return to his boyhood club.

On Wednesday night, as Santos prepared to take on their bitter rivals Palmeiras, the fans in the Vila Belmiro stadium chanted Neymar’s name, urging the 32-year-old forward to “come home.”

When Santos’s Guilherme gave the home side the lead through a deflected free-kick, he imitated Neymar’s trademark goal celebration, putting his hands to his cheeks and sticking out his tongue.

Not even a late Palmeiras turnaround dampened the spirits of the Santista support, who are all but convinced that their prodigal son is returning.

The question that remains for football fans around the world is why Neymar would choose to return to Brazil at this point in his career (and to a struggling team), while he still enjoys global superstardom and — one would expect at 32 years old — still has more than a few years left of playing at a high level.

Neymar’s Saudi nightmare

An easier question to answer is why Neymar would choose to leave his current employer, Saudi club Al-Hilal.

Eighteen months into his two-year contract in Saudi Arabia, it is clear that Neymar’s Middle East experiment has been an utter disaster in footballing terms, albeit a highly lucrative one. After being bought for a reported 90 million euros just two months before, Neymar ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his left knee and spent more than a year on the sidelines.

Two weeks after his long-awaited return to the pitch in Riyadh, he tore his hamstring and faced another month injured. In all, over the course of a year and a half at Al-Hilal, Neymar has played only seven matches and scored a single goal.

Last week, Al-Hilal’s Portuguese manager Jorge Jesus announced that the club would not even be registering Neymar for the second half of the Saudi league season, which runs from now until May.

While breaking the news during a press conference, Jesus also issued a reluctant indictment of the Brazilian forward’s fitness levels: “The truth is, physically, he’s not been able to keep up with the rest of the squad.”

As things stand, until the end of his contract in June, Neymar would only be eligible to play a handful of matches in the Asian Champions League. It is natural that he would want out.

A return home?

A move to Santos would mean returning to a place he is truly idolized. Neymar is a product of the iconic Santos youth system and spent four years playing professionally at the club, winning the 2011 Copa Libertadores. 

It is also somewhere where the team (and perhaps the entire club) would be structured around him.

While Neymar has often mentioned his desire to return to Santos at some stage in his career, he has reportedly been convinced to bring these plans forward after the club sent him an emotionally charged video, AI-narrated by the late Pelé, imploring him to return to Santos and “sit on his (now vacant) throne.” Neymar’s father (also his agent) was reportedly brought to tears by the video.

Neymar is desperate to represent Brazil at another World Cup, and playing regular football for Santos — in a more competitive competition than the Saudi Pro League — could put him in good stead when it comes to his preparations for 2026.

Salary-wise, no team in the world can afford a contract similar to the one Neymar signed with Al-Hilal in 2023, which reportedly guaranteed him a stonking USD 130 million a year. As such, the player is well aware that leaving Saudi Arabia means taking a substantial pay cut.

But then, if money was really not an issue for Neymar, he would already have been unveiled as a Santos player.

The transfer hinges on Neymar negotiating the termination of his contract with Al-Hilal, but the player is determined to leave the club while still being paid the rest of his salary until the end of June — roughly USD 65 million. While Al-Hilal is not keen on picking him to play football matches, the club appears even less keen on allowing him to walk from Saudi Arabia and still have to pay his wages for six months.

A loan deal is reportedly off the table, and only once this multimillion-dollar standoff is resolved would Neymar be able to return to Brazil and play for Santos.

The Brazilian club are planning a six-month contract, with the possibility of being extended for an extra year — which would take Neymar right up until the 2026 World Cup.

Where is Neymar in the Brazilian football Pantheon?

In Neymar’s formative footballing years at Santos, as he dazzled the world with his flamboyant tricks and outlandish hairstyles, there was no telling how far his apparently limitless potential would take him. Only one thing was certain: his career would be worth paying close attention to.

Neymar caused some controversy earlier this week when, while being interviewed by Brazilian football great Romário, he affirmed that he would have played ahead of Rivaldo in the national team’s triumphant 2002 World Cup-winning squad.

The claim was a bit of a stretch, but if not ahead of Rivaldo, then where will Neymar figure among Brazilian football’s all-time legends?

During his time at Barcelona, he was one of the best footballers in the world, playing alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez and conquering Europe. And while World Cup glory has so far eluded him, the entire Brazilian national squad was built around him for three successive World Cup cycles.

With hindsight, his 2017 transfer to Paris Saint-Germain (which made him the most expensive footballer in the world) was where it all started to go wrong for Neymar. The rationale for his move was by no means unorthodox: after spending seasons as Messi’s spectacular support act in Barcelona, Neymar moved to the nouveau riche PSG, with promises that he would be the sun around which a star-studded cast of footballers would orbit. 

You would assume that a 25-year-old Neymar believed it was in France that he would reach his full potential.

But there were a few important things that Neymar overlooked: a weak domestic league left the French side one gear below the best sides from Spain and England when it came to decisive Champions League ties. And Neymar was blindsided when, one month after joining, PSG signed the younger, faster (and French-er) Kylian Mbappé — and it became immediately clear that he would be the club’s future, not Neymar.

Couple these career missteps with his on-field personality (Neymar has a reputation for diving and exaggerating contact), a part of his game that, when at his most petulant, does not endear him to most football fans — Brazilian or otherwise.

Is he fit enough?

Before moving heaven and earth to get Neymar to sign on the dotted line, Santos might be wise to speak candidly with Jorge Jesus and the rest of the coaching staff at Al-Hilal.

While always a severe injury, Neymar’s recovery from his 2023 ACL rupture took much longer than first expected. Last September, Jesus pointed out that the Brazilian had fully recovered from the injury, but required intense physical training to regain fitness — concerns that the manager repeated last week as reason not to register him for the remainder of the league season. 

As has always been the case throughout his career, the next step on Neymar’s footballing journey is not guaranteed to be a success, nor is it guaranteed to be a failure — but it is guaranteed to be worth paying close attention to.

Other stories we’re following

🏟️ Today is the anniversary of the city of São Paulo, which also means it is the final of the Copa São Paulo junior football tournament. Nicknamed the Copinha, it is taken very seriously indeed around the country, and always attracts scores of scouts from clubs worldwide. This year’s final will be contested between local rivals São Paulo FC and Corinthians.

🏈 The São Paulo tourism board is discussing a multi-year contract to host NFL regular season matches in the city. Last year's Eagles-Packers game was a rousing success, and São Paulo hopes to tie down a four-, five- or six-year deal that could see more than one match a season played in Brazil.

🎾 Promising young Brazilian tennis ace João Fonseca confirmed that he will participate in the ATP 500 Rio Open in late February. The world number two, Germany’s Alexander Zverev, is also among the participants.

⚽ For the first time, a Brazilian club has made it into Deloitte’s annual Football Money League study, which ranks teams based on their season-long revenue. Flamengo, Brazil’s most popular club, appeared in 30th position, with a calculated revenue of 198.2 million euros.

• In the same week, the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) ranked the Brazilian Série A as the world’s fourth strongest domestic division, above Germany’s Bundesliga and Ligue 1 in France.