Neymar, Messi's shadow, and Brazil's gamble.

VHO - At 18, Neymar was given the mission to become Brazil's Messi. Sixteen years later, he's still running away from that shadow - and now, coach Carlo Ancelotti has called him up for the 2026 World Cup as a last-ditch gamble. But the real question isn't whether Neymar is capable of playing football. The real question is: Has Brazil ever allowed Neymar to be Neymar?

Coach Ancelotti has called up Neymar for the 2026 World Cup.

The burden of being called "the Messi of Brazil"

In the summer of 2010, after being eliminated by the Netherlands in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in South Africa, the Brazilian football leadership sat down together and came to a conclusion: the Selecao needed a new superstar.

And that superstar must be the Brazilian version of Lionel Messi - the Argentinian genius who is becoming increasingly great, increasingly out of reach, and increasingly becoming a shadow that South American football cannot escape.

The chosen one is an 18-year-old who has just taken Santos by storm, captivating the world with dribbling skills that seem straight out of a comic book.

His name is Neymar. And from the very first day he donned the national team jersey, he began carrying a burden he didn't choose.

Nobody asked Neymar if he wanted to be Messi. They just told him he had to become "the Messi of Brazil".

That was the starting point of one of the most beautiful tragic stories that contemporary world football has witnessed – not a tragedy of failure, but a tragedy of a brilliant individual never being allowed to be himself.

Neymar and the burden of becoming the "Messi of Brazil"

Life is a chase with no destination.

Look at what Neymar has done, not what people expect of him.

Neymar won the Copa Libertadores with Santos. Neymar won 3 La Liga titles and 1 Champions League title with Barcelona.

He, along with Messi and Suarez, formed the formidable MSN trio. In the 2014/15 season, he may well have been the best striker in Europe.

His most brilliant moment was the night of March 8, 2017, when he single-handedly shone in Barcelona's 6-1 comeback victory against PSG, one of the most surreal nights in Champions League history.

But the most memorable photo, which became the official image of the match, captured Messi celebrating with the fans.

Just a few months later, Neymar left Barcelona. Officially, PSG paid 222 million euros. In reality – according to many close to Neymar – it was because he wanted to escape Messi's shadow.

I want to be number one, not number two. I want the Ballon d'Or, not the title of "best player in Messi's team".

In Paris, he couldn't escape that shadow – because Messi later joined PSG as well. And then, while Neymar was recovering from injury, Messi quietly prepared for the 2022 World Cup and lifted the gold trophy in Qatar.

No drama needed. No noise or commotion. Just the slow, deliberate steps of someone who knows where they're going.

Neymar also scored a beautiful goal in Qatar. He scored a stunning goal in extra time in the quarter-final against Croatia – a goal any striker would want to score.

And then Croatia came back to win. Neymar went home empty-handed again. The moment he had the chance to realize his dream slipped away once more.

Brazil collapses after Neymar's injury.

The shirt was unworn and seven goals conceded.

But of all the things Neymar left behind at the World Cup, there's one image no Brazilian wants to remember: the night of July 8, 2014, at the Estádio Mineirão in Belo Horizonte, David Luiz held up Neymar's number 10 jersey while the national anthem played before the semi-final against Germany.

Neymar is absent due to a spinal injury sustained after a brutal tackle by Colombian defender Zúñiga.

But his absence left behind something more dangerous than trauma: a psychological void in the heart of a nation that had placed all its hopes on a single individual.

Without a savior, what will the chosen people do? Scrolling electronic screens. The ball goes into the net. First time. Second time. Third time. Seventh time.

It wasn't Neymar who lost to Germany 1-7. Brazil lost to Germany 1-7.

But the way Brazil had built around him – a one-sided tactical structure, an unbalanced midfield to cater to his position, the entire national sentiment anchored on a single pair of shoulders – made his absence a national disaster.

Was it Neymar's fault? No!

It was Brazil's fault – the mindset that they absolutely had to have a Messi, that they had to find someone to carry the weight of the entire football nation on their shoulders – that the only way to win was to find that individual and depend on him completely.

Neymar's moment of collapse after the defeat against Belgium.

Ancelotti, the gamble, and the hard truth.

Now, Carlo Ancelotti – the coach with the most Champions League titles in history, a man whose expertise is unquestioned in the football world – has called up Neymar to the Brazilian national team for the 2026 World Cup.

And immediately, that decision revealed something that went beyond just football.

Before the 2022 World Cup, Messi played 18 matches for PSG, scoring 10 goals.

Neymar has only played 27 club matches in the last three years. He's only played 682 minutes in the league this year – before suffering another calf injury.

There are no sporting arguments that justify this call-up.

Ancelotti is a pragmatist, a man of data and observation. He didn't call up Neymar because he believes Neymar is in his best form.

He called them up because there were things beyond their technical expertise that even the most successful coach in Champions League history couldn't overcome.

In Brazil, Neymar is more than just a player. He is an icon, a memory, and the hope of tens of millions of people – and in Brazilian football, there are things that no one dares to deny.

That's Neymar's real burden: not injuries, not form, not age.

Rather, it means that this player must never be allowed to be just an ordinary player—whether good or bad, successful or unsuccessful—in the eyes of the country that gave birth to him.

Neymar left Barcelona in search of his own glory, but he has yet to achieve it.

Epilogue

In Kazan in July 2018, after Belgium eliminated Brazil in the World Cup quarter-finals, Neymar stood alone next to the team bus in the stadium parking lot.

The giant LED lights cast his shadow on the wall. Head bowed. Shoulders slumped. He was only 26 at the time—but looked like someone who had carried too much that wasn't his for too long.

It is written that from that moment, he felt his greatest opportunity had passed.

Neymar has four more years to prove otherwise. Then another four years. And now, the 2026 World Cup.

Messi won the league at age 35. Ronaldo was still scoring goals at age 41. These precedents are being used to justify Neymar's call-up.

But Messi and Ronaldo don't need to be anyone else's Messi or Ronaldo. They just need to be themselves.

And Neymar – 34 years old, his legs weary, his body battered by dozens of injuries – is still trying to become what people wanted him to be since he was 18: the Messi of Brazil.

Something that perhaps even Messi couldn't become if someone kept telling him he had to be Messi.

It's a tragedy. Not for Neymar, but for Brazil.

According to The Guardian

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/the-thao/neymar-cai-bong-messi-va-canh-bac-cua-brazil-231121.html