untung99.art: Seriously what is it that makes you hate Neymar

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One of the underrated aspects of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s long-running tussle for supremacy was that it had an internal logic to it.

If someone disliked Messi, it was probably because they had some loyalty to the Ronaldo cause — and vice versa. The debate was usually tedious and boorish, in the way that all partisan squabbles are, but it was proportionate. The yin had a yang.

There have been other ideological fault lines over the years: Pele vs Maradona, Menotti vs Bilardo, Mourinho vs Guardiola. All have followed a similar pattern: pick a side, screw the other guy. All, that is, except one.

Yes, welcome to another episode of Neymar vs the World, an intermittent series in which one sublimely talented footballer repeatedly tries — and fails! — to convince a legion of doubters that he has not been sent by some nefarious, faraway planet to destroy everything we hold dear. Look away, child. Those dancing feet will steal your soul!

If this sounds like a straw-man argument to you, it’s probably worth taking a quick peek at Twitter when Paris Saint-Germain play a big Champions League game. Or, indeed, switching on a television. Over two legs against Bayern Munich, Neymar’s displays — hugely impressive by any sensible metric — have elicited reactions varying from the ambivalent to the strangely outraged.

As the Brazilian took the first leg by the scruff of the neck, there were the usual mumbles about his willingness to go to ground. His achingly pretty assist for Marquinhos’ goal barely got a mention on commentary. “Imagine if Messi had done that” is a childish kind of argument but, well, you’d be forgiven if the thought crossed your mind. It has probably crossed Neymar’s a few times over the years.

There was a little more praise after the return match but again, hardly universal approval. Over on the CBS Sports feed, Peter Schmeichel fought what he presumably considers the good fight. Neymar does too many tricks, he said. Neymar needs to stop play-acting, he said. Messi, he said, would have scored a hat-trick from the chances Neymar had.

These are recent examples but there have been plenty more. Think back to October, for example, when Martin Keown decided to blame Neymar for Manchester United’s winning goal at the Parc des Princes. Neymar’s crime? “Walking away from play.” Never mind that he was never in a position to challenge Marcus Rashford anyway or that Keown had spent the previous 87 minutes insisting he should be playing further up the pitch.

This kind of thing has been naggingly typical, at least in certain corners of the English-speaking world, ever since Neymar broke onto the scene. There have been times at which he has deserved criticism, and plenty of it. He is by no means a perfect player or a perfect human. But Tuesday night captured a clear disconnect between his performance level and his reputation. Neymar was electric against Bayern but not everyone was capable of seeing it.

At which point, it’s worth asking two questions. First: guys, are you allergic to pleasure?

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine a footballer. This footballer is Brazilian and plays like it. He’s an unbelievable dribbler, all unexpected angles and misdirection. He scores great goals and knows his way around a through ball. He wears white boots and the No 10 jersey. He never hides, even in the biggest matches, and yet he also manages to play with a sense of fun.

Congratulations! The footballer you have just imagined is Neymar. Yes, the guy who just left Thomas Muller and Joshua Kimmich in a heap before slipping the ball through Benjamin Pavard’s legs. The one who just sent Kingsley Coman off for a long walk and coaxed a shot onto the crossbar. The player who, when fit, does this stuff so routinely that it can start to look easy. If you like the concept, its embodiment should be a joy. And yet…

Beyond the Ronaldo-Messi dichotomy, there are countless other brilliant players who don’t provoke the same animus that Neymar does. There is no Kevin De Bruyne Sceptics Club, no Anti-Lewandowski League. So what is it about Neymar, exactly, that some people hate so much?

There’s a bit of diving and play-acting, sure, but many players are guilty of this — and not many of them actually get fouled as much as Neymar. He has literally been kicked out of matches — entire tournaments, actually — so we should probably forgive the odd exaggeration when someone clips his ankle. Old-fashioned anglophone sanctimony has a lot to answer for.

There are lingering question marks over his professionalism off the field but this seems both pious and hypocritical. Ronaldinho, Romario and countless other Brazilians have been widely indulged — even deified — for their commitment to the nocturnal arts over the years. Could Neymar squeeze a couple more percentage points out of his talent by going to bed at 8pm every night? Possibly, but it’s his life. Even accepting that elite football is more physically challenging than ever, we should give the moralising a swerve.

Maybe it’s the unignorable nature of his game. Neymar has a strange gravitational pull on the field: there is rarely a match in which he is not one of the central figures, for better or worse. He wins a lot of free kicks and talks to the referee a lot because he gets fouled a lot. He gets involved in disputes with opponents because although dribbling is easy on the eye, it is also fundamentally confrontational. He is always demanding the ball; indeed, if there is a criticism to be levelled at Neymar here, it is that he often tries to do too much on his own. It can look like a hero complex, even entitlement.

Some context is due here. At Barcelona, Neymar was seen as a team player. PSG, meanwhile, have frequently been a dysfunctional team since he arrived in 2017. As recently as last summer, even when they were reaching the Champions League final, the attacking structure was bizarrely vague, to the extent that the system seemed to be “back four plus Neymar”. It has been a similar story for Brazil at times. You could never accuse Neymar of ducking responsibility but the result has that it has sometimes been too much about him.

Maybe, though, the sands are starting to shift just a touch on this front. The understanding between Neymar and Kylian Mbappe has been bubbling away for a while but has moved to a new level now both players are operating centrally. Mbappe creates space and runs onto passes, occupying defenders’ minds. He also has comparable star power and can conjure something from nothing. Their partnership mitigates against Neymar’s do-it-all-myselfism. It might also make him more likeable.

Of course, the PSG factor still works against him in the minds of the Neymar refuseniks. He is not just the figurehead for what is intrinsically not a hugely likeable sports team, a combination of the nouveau riche and geopolitical manoeuvring. He is the man who walked away from one of the best forward lines in football history because he couldn’t bear the thought of being a supporting actor any longer — and for a fee that struck many as distasteful in its own right.

There is plenty to say about all of this but one point seems especially pertinent, four years on. Although Ligue 1 did look a lot like a diamond-encrusted cage for a player of Neymar’s ability, there has been a shift in the power balance in Europe. Barcelona have reached one Champions League semi-final since Neymar departed; PSG have now reached two. Neymar could not have predicted the extent to which Barcelona would implode after his exit but maybe he did back the right horse after all.

Would Neymar be more popular if he still played for Barcelona? Very possibly. But then he’d also be more popular if he stopped taking defenders on, abandoned the playground levity, reeled in the self-belief. Stopped being Neymar, essentially.

Maybe that would placate the critics. In the meantime, the rest of us can keep enjoying him for the sublime, luminous talent he is.

(Photo: Alexander Scheuber – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)