Big transfers from the major European leagues to the Saudi Pro League this summer tended to draw one of two reactions.
If a player was considered to be in their prime — Wolves and Portugal midfielder Ruben Neves, for example — their switch to the Middle East was lamented.
Why would a footballer turn their back on the sustaining qualities of elite-level competition to accept vast riches in a relative backwater of the global game?
It’s a question that, to a large extent, answers itself. Players close to the end of their careers have received more acceptance in the court of fan opinion. Not praise or celebration, but a collective shrug.
The latter response is the one that is easiest to find in reply to Neymar joining Al Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain in a deal worth in the region of €100 million.
MORE: How Neymar's salary at Al-Hilal compares to Ronaldo, Mbappe & Messi
This is a damning indictment of how one of the best players in the world has allowed his career and reputation to dwindle. He is 31, and still holds the record as the most transfer in football history, and a winner of multiple titles in Europe and South America. He remains arguably Brazil’s best player, having surpassed Pele’s record of 77 goals in FIFA-recognised matches with a brace in the 5-1 World Cup qualification win over Bolivia.
That is the player leaving behind prestigious European competitions to throw his lot in with the Saudi Pro League. So why does no one to the north of the Arabian Gulf seem to care very much?
Neymar’s record at PSG: Goals, assists, trophies won
Neymar’s €222m move from Barcelona to PSG in August 2017 shook world football to its core. On its own unique terms, it has been a failure. More on that a little later.
But growing feelings of apathy and disdain towards Neymar's life and times on and off the field have obscured the achievements of what has been, by any normal measurement, a phenomenal career.
In 173 appearances across all competitions for PSG, Neymar has scored 118 goals and laid on 77 assists. He is fourth on the club’s all-time scoring list behind Kylian Mbappe, Edinson Cavani, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Across six completed seasons in France, Neymar starred as PSG won Ligue 1 five times, also adding three Coupes de France and two Coupes de la Ligue to his collection.
MORE: All the big names making the move to the Saudi Pro League
Ten major honours and more than 100 goals is the sort of prime career return most players would give anything to call their own. But French football is skewed heavily in PSG’s favour because of the Qatari-owned club’s singular financial dominance.
It means that every year, the focus is drawn beyond domestic achievements. In the Neymar era, this pointed to a path paved with relentless disappointment.
MORE: Updated Saudi Pro League top scorers for 2023/24
Neymar’s PSG injuries and Champions League absences
PSG were already totally dominant in French football by the time Neymar arrived. Earlier in 2017, he orchestrated Barcelona’s incredible comeback from a 4-0 first-leg loss to defeat PSG 6-5 on aggregate in the Champions League last 16.
He was the top scorer when Barca won Europe’s top competition as part of a 2014/15 treble. Neymar was seen as the man to bring the Champions League to Paris.
The closest he got was a 1-0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the 2020 final. The following season, Manchester City claimed a 4-1 aggregate win over PSG in the semifinals. And that, more or less, was as good as it got.
In Neymar’s first season in Paris, he missed the second leg of a last-16 exit against Real Madrid due to a metatarsal injury. A similar complaint kept him on the sidelines when Manchester United dumped them out at the same stage in 2019.
He made it onto the field as a second-half substitute for a 1-0 last-16 win over Real Madrid in 2022. In the return game at the Santiago Bernabeu, Neymar was powerless as Karim Benzema conjured a hat-trick in Madrid’s latest feat of Champions League escapology.
In 2023, Bayern won 1-0 in Paris in the first knockout round. It was a familiar tale when Neymar found himself on the sidelines for the follow-up 2-0 loss in Munich after undergoing ankle surgery.
Overall, he scored 22 goals and provided 17 assists in 41 Champions League appearances for PSG. In the final analysis, it is the games he was unable to play that sting the most.
MORE: PSG's history of failure in the UEFA Champions League
View of Neymar in France
Injuries and their wretched timing, where the Champions League is concerned, are a central part of Neymar’s PSG story.
Football in the 21st century has continued to tweak its rules and directives in an attempt to protect flair players from the excessive risk of injury. Pitches at the highest level are spotless green canvases on which they can paint their masterwork.
Protecting and celebrating the most talented performers is a step change that has been broadly welcomed. However, the most skilful player from the nation most synonymous with footballing flair would be forgiven for feeling he has not enjoyed the full benefit of these circumstances.
"It's Neymar's style, but don't come and complain when you get kicked. He's a great player, I respect him. He can enjoy himself but don't come blubbering afterwards.”
So said Strasbourg defender Anthony Goncalves after Neymar hobbled out of a 2-0 Coupe de France victory in January 2019, with an injury to the same ankle that compromised his participation in the 2018 World Cup.
Neymar was crudely fouled three times in quick succession by Moataz Zemzemi, responded with a rainbow flick over the defender but then had to leave injured. Far from there being much concern over the PSG forward’s health, there was an uncomfortable level of consensus around the idea that Neymar was somehow fair game and ripe for a kicking on account of “teasing” opponents.
Of course, by this stage, there were other reasons beyond showboating for Neymar rubbing people up the wrong way.
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Neymar’s Ballon d’Or ranking
For a significant period of time, Neymar was widely considered to be the third-best player in the world. That hardly sounds like something to aspire to, but in the age of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, it hits a little differently.
The Brazilian had half a decade on the big two and was seen as their natural heir. Shining in Barca’s 'MSN' forward line alongside Messi and Luis Suarez, he looked to be in the perfect place to burnish his own legend.
However, those around Neymar — perhaps not unreasonably — decided he would be better off away from Messi’s orbit if he truly wanted to be recognised as the best player in the world.
This plan was immediately undermined by Kylian Mbappe following him to the Parc des Princes. By the time Mbappe inspired France to World Cup glory in 2018, Neymar found himself lurking in another considerable shadow. His own lack of World Cup success as Brazil's modern-day talisman is another source of negativity.
Even at a time when interest in the Ballon d’Or had skyrocketed due to the Messi and Ronaldo duopoly, such a transparent grasp for the biggest individual prize in a game celebrated for its collective spirit left an unpleasant taste. Who could be so self-absorbed that they would leave Barcelona, Messi and guaranteed trophies for a greater proportion of the limelight?
A queasiness about this aspect of Neymar’s ambition fed into people being okay with him getting kicked around French pitches. Where Messi and Ronaldo were almost universally celebrated by pundits, every show of dissent and simulation by Neymar was lambasted as if he invented both. He was fair game.
In 2017, after joining PSG but largely on account of his Barcelona performances, Neymar came third in the Ballon d’Or vote, as he did in 2015.
He has not been back on the podium since. He was 12th in 2018 and 16th in 2021. This year, as he did in 2019 and 2022, he missed out on the 30-man shortlist entirely.
As with his bid for Champions League glory at PSG, Neymar has unequivocally failed when it comes to his Ballon d’Or ambitions. He would be judged in a more favourable light but for the terms he set himself.
MORE: How many trophies has Neymar won in his career?
Why has Neymar moved to Saudi Arabia?
And so, it ends with a whimper. It is an unhelpful quirk of football’s mega-money era that once players attain elite status, they only have a handful of alternative employment options.
Once Neymar decided he wasn’t entirely happy in Paris at around the same time Barcelona and Real Madrid’s finances threatened to collapse, he was in a gilded cage.
Premier League financial heavyweights Manchester City, Manchester United, and Chelsea are all at various stages of “projects” under managers who have a clear tactical vision and want players to conform to the system. For Pep Guardiola, Erik ten Hag, or Mauricio Pochettino, this Neymar could not be considered worth the outlay or the hassle.
Once upon a time, there would have been a romantic third act in Europe, something along the lines of Diego Maradona’s rebirth at Napoli. But the financial realities of elite football in the 21st century mean those options are no longer realistically on the table.
The Saudi league has stepped in to exploit this inefficiency and will continue to do so after landing Neymar, who is just another player in the Gulf region for a payday.
And he’s never been just another player before. That’s the saddest thing of all.
