After six seasons, he's gone. The man who, at the start of the transfer window, seemed set to stay will not be playing for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) this upcoming season. The 31-year-old Brazilian, who expressed his desire to the club's management to go elsewhere last week, took off for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, August 15. Transferred to Al-Hilal, one of the clubs based in Riyadh, the most expensive recruit in the history of football (2017) joins several other football stars attracted to the welcoming arms of the Saudi league this summer.
On August 3, 2017, Neymar arrived on the banks of the Seine from FC Barcelona with superstar status. PSG had snapped him up by buying out the €222 million release clause in his contract. After six seasons, 173 matches and 118 goals, a shooting star with a bittersweet record is leaving the French capital.
If football were only a matter of statistics, Neymar's history at PSG would surely be considered a success story, and the number 10 a club legend. The Santos-trained player is the club's fourth-highest scorer and has won ten trophies, including five Ligue 1 championships, with only one year in which he failed to hit the 15-goal mark in a season. His first season in particular raised expectations: with 28 goals and 16 assists in 30 games, Neymar seemed to be the creative, brilliant player Parisian fans had been promised.
Unfortunately for "Ney," consistency is key to success in football. Subsequently, Neymar was only seen in snippets – during the 2020 Champions League Final 8 (PSG were beaten by Bayern Munich in the final) or at the start of last season, when the prospect of the World Cup in Qatar seemed to transcend him.
Of all the numbers that have marked the career of the now ex-PSG number 10, the one that stands out most is his absences. Neymar has called in sick for 119 games during his time in Paris. Injured around 20 times in six years, the striker has shown a fragility he never showed, either at Barcelona or Santos, both physically and mentally – the Brazilian's attitude has been as heavily debated as his physical form. As Thomas Tuchel, who was his coach between 2018 and 2020, put it, Neymar is "a sensitive guy" and a player "not easy to manage." Since 2017, the Brazilian has only had one season with more than 30 games for his club, all competitions combined (including European championships), when the Ligue 1 alone counted 38 matchdays (now 34 starting this season).
More than just the number of absences, it's the often unfortunate timing of these absences that has irritated Parisian fans and earned him a reputation as a player who is consistently missing at key moments in the season. In Paris, this "money time" is around the months of February and March, when the club is looking to break its glass ceiling in the Champions League. In 2018, a fractured metatarsal forced him to watch the Round of 16 elimination against Real Madrid from the stands. A year later, a recurrence of the same injury forced him to watch in disbelief as his team-mates were routed by Manchester United (2-0 in the first leg, 1-3 in the return). In 2022, PSG won without him against Madrid in the first leg, before falling apart in the second leg, with Neymar and co. victims of a Karim Benzema hat-trick.
And when the player is there, he is often impotent or unhappy, as he was during the Qatari version of PSG's only European final in 2020. The Brazilian, who had the winning goal at his feet against Bayern, missed. However, the "Final 8" format – knockout matches from the quarter-finals onwards – played in Lisbon due to the Covid-19 pandemic, saw him transformed, for once, into a leader.
It's hard not to talk about a mess when it comes to Parisian Neymar, given the number of scandals that have marred his time in the French capital. A trial for fraud and corruption surrounding his transfer from Brazil to Barcelona in 2022 (he was acquitted), a clandestine party in the midst of a pandemic, an accusation of rape in 2019 (before escaping prosecution, the judge deemed that he did not have enough evidence to be charged). Enough to relegate "penaltygate" – when tensions reigned in the dressing room around the identity of the penalty taker – or criticism of his lifestyle.
The Brazilian has often been criticized for his desire to party and play late-night poker games, to illustrate his lack of commitment to PSG. In February 2023, the day after PSG lost to Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, and while Kylian Mbappe had insisted on the importance of "eating well, sleeping well" ahead of the return match, images of his Brazilian partner in a fast-food restaurant at the end of the night surfaced on social media.
Questioned about his antics this year by the Brazilian media outlet BandSports, Neymar never hesitated to defend himself – "It's my life, I do what I want." The rest of his life involves leaving Paris Saint-Germain at just 31, for the glittering attractions of Saudi Arabia. While a hundred or so Parisian fans who chanted "bugger off" under his windows at the end of last season may have had their wish granted, all that remains of the golden triumvirate of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe – who were supposed to take PSG to the very top of the continent – is Mbappe. Neymar is turning the page on his crumpled and crossed-out adventure with the Paris club.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.