This is a man who has spent almost all of his career as the next in line, an oddly draining status as other stars rise, as the players ahead of you refuse to decline until your own mortality has begun to bite. Neymar may not have missed his window yet. But the real sweet spot, his shot at ultimacy, is flattening out.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. This is a footballer whose talent is, at bottom, a joyful thing. I saw Neymar live for the first time at the Arena São Paulo in 2014. He didn’t have a great game. But we all left cooing over what a joy he was in the flesh, this lovely little sprite made from sherbet and feathers. Seven years on there he was again, a parable of talent mangled through the machinery of big sport, and wreathed in a kind of sadness as he wandered across the grass in east Manchester. Look how they massacred my boy.
.
out there.
