He’s back.
Again.
Maybe.
The ground was being prepared for the return of Neymar to actual football with Al Hilal.
In the 18 months since signing with the Riyadh-based club, the 32-year-old Brazil international forward has made just seven appearances lasting 428 combined minutes, as injuries scuppered one of the ambitious Saudi Pro League’s marquee signings.
But with Saudi football now resuming following a month-long winter break, Neymar looked like he was back in action. He scored in a recent friendly, and appeared set to be available tonight (Tuesday) in their quarter-final at home against Al Ittihad in the King’s Cup, the Saudi equivalent of English football’s FA Cup.
Then Al Hilal announced he had missed training because of an abdominal issue.
At the time of writing, it was unclear whether he will play today. If he doesn’t, it would sum up his time in Saudi Arabia rather neatly: lots of promise, plenty of smiling for the cameras, very little action.
It would be harsh to blame Neymar himself too much. Following his move from Paris Saint-Germain in August 2023, he played just five times for Al Hilal before an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury on international duty in the October. A year of rehab and recuperation followed, before Al Hilal announced his return with a slick video which declared: ‘he’s back’.
Which he was, but not for long. After just 29 minutes of his second appearance upon his return, in early November, he pulled a hamstring and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of 2024.
It’s not quite what Al Hilal and those with grand plans for the Saudi Pro League (SPL) had in mind when they agreed to pay him around £120million ($150m) a year, on top of the £80m transfer fee to PSG.
Neymar pulling up injured in November (Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)
He already appears to be something of a forgotten man in the Gulf nation, his face absent from many of the billboards you see around capital Riyadh advertising the SPL, with peers such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Riyad Mahrez much more prominent in the marketing push for the 2034 World Cup, which Saudi Arabia will host.
There is a sense that, while nobody is kidding themselves that all of those players aren’t there for the money, Neymar hasn’t bought into the Saudi project — publicly at least — as much as others.
Neymar signed a two-year contract, which expires this summer, so the man who is still among the world’s most celebrated footballers and who has moved for combined fees of over $300million in his career will, as things stand, be available for nothing.
So what now?
The short version is that no decision has yet been taken on Neymar’s future — a source close to the player, who like others consulted for this article spoke anonymously in order to protect relationships, insisted the focus is on him getting fit and actually playing some football.
The longer version is that there are a range of different options, not just on the pitch but, perhaps most surprisingly and intriguingly, off it too.
The first thing we should deal with is the rest of the 2024-25 season.
Media reports have suggested that Al Hilal could cancel his contract early — everyone writes the move off as a bad job and he finds somewhere else to play in the current winter window. But the sense you get from talking to people around the Saudi game and those close to Neymar is that he will see out his contract.
From his perspective, to walk away now would be to give up a huge stack of money: he is still owed close to £60million, and while he wouldn’t give all of that up in any settlement agreement, there is one sure-fire way to ensure he gets it all.
Neymar at his Al Hilal unveiling (Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)
And from the club’s perspective, there’s the revamped and greatly expanded Club World Cup in June and July to consider: Al Hilal qualify for it on the basis of winning the 2020-21 Asian Champions League, and got a pretty tasty draw, landing in the same group as European and world champions Real Madrid. That tournament in the United States represents a fantastic global stage for the SPL, so this might be the last chance for the club, their league, the state’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), to squeeze a final bit of value out of this particular investment.
But while he’ll probably stay, how much football he will play over the next few months is another matter: it might not quite be as simple as him slotting straight back into the team for the season’s remaining games, as there is a fairly significant administrative wrinkle to smooth over.
Due to his ACL injury, Neymar wasn’t registered for the SPL in the first half of the campaign (his only two appearances came in the Champions League), and Al Hilal currently have their full quota of eight foreigners. If they want Neymar to play domestic football, they will have to deregister, or sell, one of Kalidou Koulibaly, Malcom, Renan Lodi, Yassine Bounou, Ruben Neves, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Joao Cancelo or Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.
This won’t be an issue for the King’s Cup, nor the Champions League. Al Hilal have two group games remaining next month in the latter but have already qualified for the knockout phase, meaning there are a minimum of four matches to play in that tournament.
It’s also worth pointing out that Al Hilal seem to be coping perfectly well without him.
They won the 2023-24 SPL title, unbeaten and 14 points clear, scoring 101 goals in their 34 games, lifted the King’s Cup and got to the Champions League semi-finals, and they are second in the league this term, two points behind Al Ittihad. Of their big imports, the slightly less sexy but ultimately more effective Mitrovic has been the key man, scoring a league-leading 12 goals so far this season, with former Barcelona player Malcom filling the vacant role of bandy-legged Brazilian winger, and Wolves old boy Neves pulling the strings in midfield. The latter had knee surgery in early November but is expected back this month.
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All of which means it is plausible that Neymar could simply sit out the remaining 21 SPL games, and just play in any further King’s Cup ties plus the Champions League and then the Club World Cup. After which, hands will be shaken and he will be free to go somewhere else as a free agent in the summer window.
But where?
Let’s start with the least likely option once his contract expires: staying in Saudi Arabia.
While the prestige of having a player of Neymar’s global stature is extremely attractive to the SPL, the people funding this thing do still expect some sort of return on their vast investment. The fact he has barely played in his two seasons so far surely means they won’t give a man who turns 33 in a month another fat contract.
By far the most common theory is that Neymar will return to the club where he made his name: depending on who you speak to, the prospect of him re-signing for Santos is either likely or virtually certain. It was Santos where he made his senior debut, where he became the new great hope of Brazilian football in the early 2010s, and where he helped win the Copa Libertadores in 2011, before a 2013 transfer to Europe with Barcelona.
It’s also where he’s still regarded as a hero. He still has a house in Santos, a coastal city in Sao Paulo state, he has frequently gone back to attend the club’s games, posted about them numerous times on social media while playing for other teams, and Santos themselves have actively made him part of their social media strategy, harnessing his popularity for their own growth.
Neymar playing for Santos in the 2011 Club World Cup final (Mike Hewitt – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
And for what it’s worth, Neymar said in a 2019 interview with Fox Sports that “for sure, when I return to Brazil, I will play for Santos again.”
The club aren’t exactly being coy.
“We are clear and objective, his father and his staff know it,“ Santos’ president Marcelo Teixeira told the media regarding Neymar after their promotion back to Brazil’s Serie A was confirmed in November. “They know me, they know Santos. We have to wait, because he has an active contract.”
It would make sense on an emotional level, and in theory it could be the perfect way to close off his career, but there might be drawbacks. The fact that Santos have fallen on hard times recently and spent time in the second tier means there would be huge pressure on Neymar to lead the eight-time Brazilian champions and three-time Copa Libertadores winners back to glory pretty quickly, for example.
Perhaps the most intriguing option is not merely returning to Santos to play but to buy, or invest in, the club. The liberalisation of Brazilian football’s ownership-related laws in 2021 (previously, almost all clubs were non-profit recreational organisations and technically couldn’t be sold to outside investors) means this is now open to someone such as Neymar, who has spent nearly two decades accumulating wealth from both his wages and a head-spinning array of sponsorship deals.
Fellow Brazil icon Ronaldo recently bought and subsequently sold Belo Horizonte-based Cruzeiro, so there is precedent for former players to go into the ownership game. It’s not particularly expensive either, relatively speaking: Ronaldo eventually sold his 90 per cent stake in Cruzeiro for around $117million, while Crystal Palace’s American co-owner John Textor didn’t directly pay anything to take control of Botafogo, on the condition that he invested around $80m and helped pay down the Rio de Janeiro club’s debt.
With all of this in mind, several sources have suggested Neymar could either take over or invest in the club where it started for him and where he is still revered. As mentioned above, Santos only won promotion back to the top tier last season after a lean few years, but they are one of the Brazilian clubs that observers identified as attractive to potential investors.
In all likelihood, this would not happen immediately.
Santos are still an old-style recreational organisation and, in order to be taken over, the club would have to be converted into a Sociedade Anonima do Futebol or ‘SAF’, the structure which allows anyone to purchase up to 90 per cent of the shares — a process that is not always simple and will take some time. Neymar would also most likely not be a lone benefactor, probably more the figurehead of a group of investors. When asked by The Athletic, a source close to the player called this possibility “gossip”, but didn’t deny it could happen.
Santos are not his only option, though.
Neymar has spoken several times about his affection for another Rio side, Flamengo. In June last year he was spotted watching their game against Gremio, and he also posted a picture of himself wearing a Flamengo shirt with the name and number of their forward Gabriel Barbosa. It’s a frequent topic for Flamengo president Rodolfo Landim, who told the Charla Podcast in July: “I walk down the street and people ask me when I’m going to sign Neymar. I say, ‘Guys, Neymar earns more per month than two Flamengo salaries’.”
There was a brief flurry of excitement this week when Coritiba, a club in the Brazilian second division, announced that Neymar would be signing for them, but that turned out to be the result of some mischievous scamps who hacked their website.
The other club most frequently mentioned to The Athletic as a potential destination are Inter Miami of MLS, with the delicious/pointlessly nostalgic (depending on your point of view) prospect of Neymar being reunited with his old Barcelona forward-line pals Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. Miami are certainly ambitious enough and haven’t been shy about paying the sort of salary that would attract big, slightly-past-their-prime stars.
Suarez, left, Neymar, middle, and Messi playing for Barcelona in 2015 (Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)
“The key word is if he were to become available,” Miami’s managing owner Jorge Mas told GiveMeSport in December. “He is an Al Hilal player now. He’s not available to us. I have always said we aspire to bring great players to our team. We have a lot of roster limitations and restrictions, but we have an unlimited budget.
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“We are aspirational. If there is ever a chance to bring the calibre of a player like Neymar, we will not hesitate.”
Others haven’t been as receptive. Leila Pereira, president of Sao Paulo’s Palmeiras, frequent Brazilian and South American champions this decade, said of them potentially signing Neymar: “I want to invest in someone who can come in immediately, who can start tomorrow if the coach decides. Palmeiras is not a medical department.” Ouch.
There seems to be little interest elsewhere. Barcelona tried to bring him back a couple of times after selling him to PSG in 2017, but they can’t register the players they already have, never mind bringing in one who’d cost as much as Neymar. Chelsea made enquiries when he left Paris for Al Hilal, but it was nothing especially serious and they have moved on since.
Then there’s his international career.
It would be easy to think that Brazil’s national team has moved past Neymar. This is Vinicius Junior’s time. Plus, another generation of young forwards — Endrick, Rodrygo, the Chelsea-bound Estevao Willian — have either established themselves or are coming through.
Was Neymar’s Brazil era over the moment he moved to Saudi Arabia? Do Brazil still need him? Do Brazil even still want him? In order, the answers to those questions are: no, yes, and emphatically yes.
Playing in the SPL does not necessarily mean the end of one’s international career. Several Saudi-based players flourished at the European Championship last year: N’Golo Kante (France), Aymeric Laporte (Spain), Merih Demiral (Turkey). Houssem Aouar has continued to play for Algeria, Franck Kessie for Ivory Coast, Neymar’s club colleague Bono for Morocco. Were it not for the knee injury, he would still have been a regular for Brazil and probably would have been in last summer’s Copa America squad.
Anyone doubting that he could return to the international stage drastically underestimates the esteem in which he is still held in Brazil, and among the squad. Most of that younger generation grew up idolising Neymar, and despite not being available to actually play, he was a prominent figure at that 2024 Copa America in the United States. Rodrygo, who wore Brazil’s famous No 10 shirt at the tournament, said he was simply “keeping it warm” for Neymar.
And while a couple of recent victories have improved things a little, Brazil’s 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign has been a shambles. Coach Dorival Junior frankly needs all the help he can get.
“I would like him to return to the team at a time when the team can support him,” Dorival told the Brazilian media, when asked about Neymar in November. “I hope that happens again in March, or the following year. All we want is for him to be fully fit, so that he can do his best.”
Neymar’s has been a curious career.
Some will tell you it has been a disappointment, that he has never really lived up to his promise.
But that’s a problem of our expectations, rather than a flaw in Neymar.
He emerged at a time when he was anointed as the next great hope of Brazilian football — the only hope, in fact. Had he come through when Ronaldo or Ronaldinho or Kaka or Rivaldo were in their respective pomps, perhaps people wouldn’t have expected quite so much of him.
He has won Olympic gold, the UEFA Champions League, the Copa Libertadores, two league titles in Spain and five in France. He’s also been a brilliant, thrilling player to watch for close to 15 years; and depending on your tolerance of his on-pitch ‘antics’ (which should also be caveated by the fact he would routinely get kicked up in the air every game), he has been, at the very least, an aesthetic net positive to football.
If his career ends like this, hobbled by injuries, that will be an enormous shame.
But perhaps there will be a final glorious, sentimental or emotional chapter to the Neymar story.
(Top photo: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)
