Brazil rides on Neymar
Print Edition
HE is small of stature and slight of build, but Neymar showed he could carry the hopes of a troubled nation with an electrifying performance in Brazil’s World Cup opener.
With pressure piled on his young shoulders, it would have been easy for Neymar to crumble but instead the 22-year-old seized the moment with two goals in the 3-1 win over Croatia.
On the day he got his 50th cap, he was once again the star of the show, winning the Man of the Match award and they were his fifth and sixth goals in his last four Brazil games and took his international total to 33. Only Pele scored 30 in so few games.
Helped by a large slice of luck, Neymar’s dragged shot in the first half trundled in off the Croatian post, before he struck an awful penalty that somehow Stipe Pletikosa failed to keep out.
Those details, as well as the fact that the penalty was highly debatable, did not trouble the 60,000-plus crowd at the Corinthians Arena which exploded in delight as fireworks detonated outside. “This is a dream come true, much more than I imagined,” Neymar said. “But more important than anything is that our team won.”
Given the situation in Brazil, with ambivalence towards the World Cup and police tear-gassing protesters in Sao Paulo just hours earlier, the value of those goals could be high.
When President Dilma Rousseff was seen on the big screen celebrating Neymar’s second goal, the crowd responded with a foul-mouthed chant.
Neymar is Brazil’s undisputed star, adored for repeatedly snubbing European clubs before joining Barcelona and promoted so efficiently the phenomenon is known as “Neymarketing”.
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