Neymar's Return to Training: Brazil Faces World Cup Uncertainty
Neymar is back on the training pitch with Brazil. He is not, however, back in the World Cup team sheet.
The country’s record goalscorer, sitting on 79 goals, only rejoined full training with the squad in the United States this week after a right calf injury. At 34, with a body increasingly marked by setbacks, his return is being handled with surgical caution.
He missed Brazil’s opening 1-1 draw with Morocco and will again watch from the sidelines when Carlo Ancelotti’s side face Haiti in their second group game on Friday. The coach has left him out of the matchday squad, resisting the temptation to fast‑track his star forward back into action.
Outside the camp, the Neymar debate is already in full swing. Inside Brazil, it even reached the president.
“Neymar? He is not even playing!” Lula shot back to a young boy who mentioned the striker’s name. The 80-year-old, speaking at a hospital ceremony in Belo Horizonte, could not resist twisting the knife a little more: “Neymar is the first player to be called up to the national team who is working remotely.”
It was a line delivered with a smile, part of a light-hearted run from Lula since the Morocco game. On Wednesday he even joked that he was thinking of signing Lionel Messi to play for Brazil. The humour, though, reflects a real tension: a nation used to building its hopes around Neymar now has to get used to life without him on the pitch, at least for the moment.
The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain forward was diagnosed in late May with a calf injury and has managed only half of Santos’ games this year, his season repeatedly interrupted by fitness problems. Those recurring issues made his inclusion in this World Cup squad a talking point even before a ball was kicked.
Ancelotti and his staff, according to Brazilian media, are determined not to gamble. They fear that rushing Brazil’s all‑time leading scorer back now could cost them later in the tournament, when the stakes will be higher and the margins thinner. For them, the risk of a setback outweighs the lure of an early cameo.
There was at least one positive step this week. Neymar trained with his teammates for the first time on Wednesday, a small but significant moment for a player who has not featured for his country since October 2023. For three World Cup campaigns he has been the axis around which Brazil turned; this time, he is the question mark.
Brazil’s group stage ends against Scotland in Miami on June 24. Between now and then, the story around their No. 10 will not quieten. Will he be ready to step back into the spotlight, or will this be the World Cup where Brazil finally learn to live — and possibly thrive — without him?
