Neymar sits on the lawn and covers his face, after the vexing ripped by 6-0 suffered by Santos against Vasco on Sunday (17). With teary eyes, he receives the comfort of the coach of the Rio team, Fernando Diniz, before leaving Morumbi.
Minutes later, he translates into words the feeling exposed in the images: “It was a shit. It is a shame to do it with Santos’s shirt.”
Recessed in 2023, Santos finds himself again in the fight against the descent in the Brazilian Championship. While the bad results accumulate, the athlete who returned this year with a big party – matured from 2009 to 2013 in the professional team alvinegro, with great achievements – vai collecting moments of irritation.
On multiple occasions, he was involved in discussions with stands of the stands that questioned his performance. He said in one of them that if he was hurting the team, he would be the first to “get things and leave.”
The crisis goes far beyond the player’s performance. And it cost the job of Cleber Xavier, fired shortly after the defeat, less than four months old.
Managers evaluated that the bet on Xavier was a calculated risk: a qualified as an auxiliary professional, always as an assistant of Tite, but without ballast as the main coach. The salary of R $ 350 thousand, with a total expense of R $ 500 thousand in the coaching staff, and the termination fine corresponding to three months of contract were considered factors that, in case of failure, made the rupture administrable.
Now, the club works to have a replacement even before the match against Bahia on Sunday (24). The favorite name is Jorge Sampaoli. The barrier, however, is the requirements made by the Argentine.
The coach makes a vow to love Santos, a club he directed in 2019, but imposes hard conditions. He calls for three reinforcements – a defender, a steering wheel and an attacker – all on a buying basis, which would represent a high spending to the club. It also wants a three -year contract and is almost adamant in negotiations. To this is the very high salary required.
While the board does not solve who will conduct the team, Neymar is pressured after a first semester in which he faced successive injuries. His absence was especially marked in the semifinal of the Paulista Championship, lost to Archirrival Corinthians. Even with him in the field, there was also frustration with the early fall in the Brazilian Cup, at the hands of CRB, in the third phase of the tournament.
Faced with the vexation against Vasco, the club’s soccer director, Alexandre Mattos, promised changes. “Santos will never admit such a regrettable situation, the lack of intensity, the lack of everything, which caused in this tragedy, let’s say so,” he said. “Let’s look at the market.”
Until the defeat, the board presided by Marcelo Teixeira did not plan to reinforce the cast. It was Neymar’s most constant presence that was treated as the great reinforcement of the second semester.
Santos management started to charge more control over the athlete’s preparation. During the treatment of the injury suffered in April, in the left thigh, he required the care to be carried out by professionals hired by the club, not just those of the player himself, so that the coaching staff could closely monitor his dedication.
Neymar has been pressured to better take care of his own body. Although its presence at parties and events is not disapproved by the board, there is concern for sleep quality, considered essential for the recovery of high level athletes.
The report accompanied its participation in a poker tournament recently organized by a sponsor. In this environment, Neymar works without pressure. Surrounded by famous friends and people willing to pay $ 25,000 to sit at the table, there is a distant universe of the charge that accompanies him in football.
In the lawns, the smiles have been less frequent. Suspended by the third yellow card, he will not be on the field against Bahia, in Salvador, on Sunday (24). Thus, the vexation against Vasco was his last appearance before the next Brazilian National Team, scheduled for Monday (25), when Carlo Ancelotti Var announced the list for the games against Chile and Bolivia, by the qualifiers.
Absent in the first Italian call, shirt 10 has not yet acted under his command. Datafolha survey June showed a divided country: 48% of Brazilians advocated their presence at the 2026 World Cup, and 41% rejected the idea – the margin of error was two percentage points, more or less.
Since then, the ace has done little to expand popularity and reduce rejection, increasingly visible in Santos’ own fans.
At the end of last Sunday’s rout, much of those present at Morumbi turned their backs on the team, in protest.
With 21 points, the alvinegra team has only two advantage over Vitória, the first in the relegation zone of the Brazilian.
