Throw into the mix that Cristiano Ronaldo is already 31 – in a fancy-that twist he shares the same February 5 birthday as Neymar – then there is a clear division between what would commonly be regarded as the best four players in the world, the Ballon D’Or protagonists if the shortlist stretched to four to include Suarez.
Neymar is, evidently, the youngest. He is therefore the only one yet to hit his prime or, at least, his prime years. Messi and Suarez are in that period right now; Ronaldo already seems to be the other side of it.
The age issue is something they are well aware of at Barcelona where there is an expectation that the Brazilian should become the best player in the world in two to three years time.
What is also interesting is how he is already regarded at Barcelona. And that does appear to be indicative. Having spent time at the club’s Joan Gamper training complex there is a certainly an expectation that Neymar will eventually succeed, and not just partner, Messi.
Team-mates are not always the best guides – especially with their public utterances – but Gerard Pique is an exception. The Barcelona defender says it how he sees it. So he still emphatically rates Messi as the best player in the world; Suarez as the one with the best “first touch in the box” (interesting given his chance conversion rate is not always clinical) while Neymar is already “unstoppable, the best one-on-one”.
Much attention has rightly been devoted on how this unique forward line has worked; the selflessness that each player has shown with Messi willing to move positions to accommodate Suarez and Suarez willing to run himself into the ground for his team.
Arsene Wenger, charged with the task of devising a way to stop ‘MSN’, said of the relationship enjoyed by the forwards: “In French we call it complicitie”. It felt like the right word.
Neymar’s contribution is often, out of the three players, the one that is overlooked. He remains, for some, the luxury item in that lethal mix although it did not go unnoticed at Barcelona that when Messi was out for 10 matches injured in the autumn Neymar stepped up to score 11 of the team’s 27 goals during that period. His team-work, also, has hugely improved.
Neymar arrived from Brazil in 2013 for the highest fee ever paid by Barcelona – the exact amount is still shrouded in secrecy and still subject to being dragged through the courts - but there was nothing reclusive about either his behaviour or his appearance with flash haircuts and flashy skills.
There was the backlash, also, which still persists, with Neymar labelled little more than a show-pony, a circus act with a distracting entourage and a YouTube sensation with negligible substance to show for it. They even termed a word for his profile – Neymarketing. His icon status was confirmed before his ability.
Some of that circus image persists with the speculation over Neymar’s future not going to go away given Manchester United are willing to activate the 180million euro (£140million) release clause in his contract, that Manchester City would also want to be involved in that conversation and that Chelsea have always carried a torch for the forward also.
Then there is the wholly separate – but connected in terms of his happiness and future and the involvement of his father – issue of the allegations of tax evasion and the courts attempting to freeze his assets. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The expectation is that Neymar, whose current contract expires in 2018, as does Messi’s present deal, will stay with Barcelona to fulfil that potential. It is the best place for him. Ultimately, though, money will also play its part with the player and his representatives aware of the situation he is in and how valuable he is and can become – on and off the pitch.
“It would not be surprising at all if Neymar was named the best player in the world,” the Brazilian legend Zico recently told the Barcelona club website about his own compatriot. Although that may have been – given their shared nationality – a politically correct thing to say the fact is that with Neymar’s age the surprise would be if he does not eventually claim that title and does not do so in Barcelona. It is hard to see anyone rivalling him.
- Telegraph