Neymar’s Brazil return under Carlo Ancelotti: World Cup recall owes more to faith than reason but a nation still dreams | Football News

“Neymar can be important for any team,” Cafu, the last man to captain Brazil to World Cup glory, tells Sky Sports. “Seeing Neymar playing well, physically and technically, that can help the Brazil team a lot.” It has just been a long time since anyone saw it.

Talk about a psychodrama. Neymar-mania continues to engulf Brazil and one wonders whether the five-time champions of the world should be above it. But the longing for the country’s all-time top scorer in the men’s game to have his last dance is an obsession.

Neymar was excluded from the squad as a teenager in 2010 despite popular demand. In 2014, on home soil, injury robbed him of his moment and proved the prelude to the humiliating 7-1 defeat to Germany in Belo Horizonte that still haunts Brazilian football.

Injury again disrupted his momentum before the 2018 tournament and during it in 2022. He did recover sufficiently in Qatar to score a sensational extra-time goal in the quarter-final only for Croatia to equalise in the 117th minute and knock Brazil out on penalties.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that Neymar’s love affair with the national team has been fraught with emotion and demands its perfect ending. The small matter of form, fitness and 34 years of wear and tear must not be allowed to stand in his way.

Having not played for Brazil since 2023, Carlo Ancelotti delivered the dramatic recall, received rapturously by many. The veteran Italian coach had long stated that Neymar could return only when he had proven that he was ready – then just picked him anyway.

Eight appearances for Santos in the Brazilian top division this year should not really have been enough. Every one of them has come at home, not exactly proof that Neymar has been eager to test himself in the toughest of environments. The case is flimsy.

He does rank among the top 10 players in the competition for chances created per game but even Ancelotti knows the truth. Joao Pedro is, he admits, unfortunate to have missed out on the squad despite failing to seize his own opportunities with the Selecao.

What is Ancelotti thinking?

So, why do this? Some say it is evidence of Ancelotti’s appetite to bet on talent. For much of his coaching career, this is a man who has been happy to assemble the most gifted players available and back himself to make it all work when the moment comes.

Even now, it is still just about possible to argue that Neymar’s ceiling can be higher than the rest. Find a way to unlock his talent, even briefly, and it could make the difference. Cafu knows Ancelotti well from their time together at AC Milan and trusts his judgment.

“I think so,” he replies when asked if this is the right call. “Ancelotti is an experienced coach, a coach who knows how to set up a team for this type of competition. We hope that Ancelotti can bring new energy to the Brazilian team. He has the conditions.”

But there is another reason why Ancelotti has opted for Neymar. He has made a calculation. The noise around the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain player was never going to go away this summer, regardless of whether he was selected or not.

By including him, insisting there will be no special privileges, he puts the onus back on Neymar to prove his fitness. The hope is that he can produce his cameos, inspire rather than inhibit his team-mates, reducing rather than increasing the pressure on the others.

It is a gamble because the questions will continue to come. He is in the squad but is he fit enough to come onto the pitch? If he is fit enough to come onto the pitch then is he fit enough to start? And so, Brazil hope, it will go. All the way to the Meadowlands in July.

Echoes of Romario

History tells us that Brazil makes a habit of this sort of melodrama, the domestic favourite seizing the spotlight. Dunga resisted the calls from legendary figures Pele and Romario to include Neymar in 2010 and paid the price with his job when it went wrong.

In a sense, with Neymar back at Santos, the story has come full circle. But it is one that predates him as well. Often, it was Romario himself who found himself the focus of this attention. The campaign for his inclusion used to be a quadrennial debate in Brazil.

In 1994, Carlos Alberto Perreira was determined to leave Romario out over a perceived slight. He resisted his inclusion until the eve of the final qualifier. Brazil had to win to reach the World Cup. An injury to Muller led to a change of heart. Cafu recalls it well.

“It was the last game of the qualifiers against Uruguay in the Maracana and Romario showed his personality when he came back into the team. He said that he would solve the problem for us and he did. We won the game 2-0. Romario scored the two goals.”

The rest is history. Romario starred at the World Cup and Perreira called it divine intervention. Four years later, in 1998, Mario Zagallo withdrew Romario from the squad just before the tournament due to injury and things played out very differently.

Bebeto, up front with Ronaldo in Romario’s absence, struggled to replace him and Brazil lost 3-0 to France in the final. Romario was soon back scoring goals for Flamengo and mocking Zagallo in cartoon form on the toilet stalls of a Rio bar he owned.

Luis Felipe Scolari had rather more luck when ignoring the calls for Romario to be included in his squad for the 2002 World Cup at the age of 36. It took winning the tournament to keep the critics at bay. Ancelotti has an alternative answer with Neymar.

Will it work? Cafu, the only man to play in three consecutive finals, is optimistic. Ask him who will win the World Cup this summer and he smiles before answering emphatically. “Brazil, without a doubt. I have no doubt about the potential of this team.”

But potential and reality, particularly where this 34-year-old version of Neymar is concerned, are two very different things.