The news that Carlo Ancelotti has included a creaking, injury-prone Neymar in Brazil’s World Cup squad has sent shockwaves through the football world. It is a decision that reeks of desperation, a last roll of the dice for a nation that has spent over a decade trying to manufacture its own Lionel Messi. Neymar, now 34 and nursing a fresh calf injury, has started just 27 league matches in the past three years and managed a paltry 682 minutes of league action this season. On merit alone, his selection is indefensible; yet here he is, once again carrying the weight of a country’s impossible expectations.
The obsession with finding a Brazilian Messi began almost as soon as the Argentinian genius burst onto the scene. When Neymar made his senior debut in 2010, still a teenager, he was immediately cast as the antidote to a post-Dunga funk. The logic was simple: if Argentina had Messi, Brazil needed its own transcendent star. That burden has never really lifted. Throughout his career, Neymar has been a mirror reflecting the anxieties of a football-mad nation, a canvas onto which fans and media have painted their own fantasies of a return to world dominance.
The reality, however, has always fallen short. At the 2018 World Cup, Brazil’s entire tactical setup was warped to accommodate Neymar’s free-floating role, leaving a yawning chasm on the left flank that Belgium ruthlessly exploited in the quarter-final. Roberto Martínez’s masterstroke moved Romelu Lukaku wide, targeting the space Neymar vacated, and Brazil were too unbalanced to respond. The image of a forlorn Neymar, head bowed against an illuminated screen after the defeat, captured the crushing pressure he bore — not as a leader but as a sacred totem.
Four years earlier, the madness reached its peak. In the brutal quarter-final against Colombia, Neymar suffered a fractured vertebra after a clumsy challenge from Juan Camilo Zúñiga. The reaction in Brazil was histrionic: the nation mourned as if a tragedy had struck, and in the semi-final against Germany, his teammates brandished his shirt during the national anthem as if invoking a deity. The resulting 7-1 demolition was a psychological collapse that exposed the hollow centre of the Neymar cult. Brazil had made him the messiah, and when he wasn’t there, they fell apart.
Between these World Cup heartbreaks, Neymar’s club career offered glimpses of what might have been. At Barcelona, alongside Messi and Luis Suárez, he was part of a devastating trident that won the Champions League in 2015. Yet even then, he was never the main man — always in Messi’s shadow. His record-breaking move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 was supposed to be his liberation, but it only deepened his identity as a tool for geopolitical sports-washing. Injuries and off-field distractions eroded his sharpness, and when Messi joined him in Paris, the dynamic felt like a parody: the apprentice still following the master.
Flash forward to today, and the numbers are damning. Neymar’s body has betrayed him repeatedly, and even before the latest calf injury he was a sporadic contributor. In the past three years, his league starts barely exceed two seasons’ worth of football. This season, he had played fewer than 700 minutes before breaking down again. Ancelotti, a coach renowned for his man-management and pragmatism, knows all this. His decision to call up Neymar anyway suggests he is bowing to forces beyond his control — be they federation politics, commercial pressures, or the simple terror of coaching Brazil without a totem.
The Messi comparison that has haunted Neymar is now impossible to ignore. When Messi finally claimed the World Cup in 2022 at age 35, he did so after a half-season of regular, prolific football with PSG. He was fit, sharp and surrounded by a balanced Argentina side built around him. Neymar, by contrast, limps into this tournament on the back of scraps. While Messi was a conductor in Qatar, Neymar looks more like a broken violinist who can only hope to play a cameo from the bench.
What does this selection mean for Brazil’s prospects? In practical terms, it risks unbalancing the team just as it did in 2018. Ancelotti will have to find compensatory structures to cover for a player who offers little defensive work rate and whose explosive bursts are now rare. Emotionally, it reignites the same unhealthy dependency that has plagued the Seleção for a generation. The squad is brimming with young talent — Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo, Endrick — yet all eyes will be on a fading star, hoping for one last flash of brilliance.
The political dimension cannot be overstated. In Brazil, the national team manager is not just a coach but a lightning rod for public sentiment. Ancelotti, for all his Champions League pedigree, may have concluded that omitting Neymar was a riskier career move than including him. Better to have a broken icon on the bench and share the blame if things go wrong than to face the wrath of 200 million fans who still see Neymar as their only hope. It is a sobering reminder that even the best coaches are not immune to the demands of narrative.
Ultimately, this is a gamble built on wishful thinking. There is no logical case for Neymar’s inclusion given his fitness and form, only an emotional one. Perhaps he can summon one last moment of magic, a late winner to justify the faith, but the more likely outcome is a repeat of past disappointments — a campaign dragged down by an imbalance created in his name. Brazil’s desperation for a Messi of their own has warped their footballing identity for too long, and this selection proves they still haven't learned the lesson.
As the World Cup approaches, the world will watch to see if Ancelotti’s faith is rewarded or if Neymar’s story ends not with a triumphant last dance but with another quiet exit. Based on reporting from The Guardian.