Seeing a substitute subbed off is rarely positive and that was the case on 4 November for Neymar. Off the bench in the second half of an AFC Champions League Elite match against Esteghlal of Iran, the 32-year-old was soon delighting fans in Riyadh with sombrero flicks and step-overs. There were more twists and turns but then, after 30 minutes, there was a pull. A slight stretch for the ball in the area and a second game back after a 12-month injury lay-off came to an end with yet another injury.
The Brazilian, no stranger to injuries, put a positive spin on it all. “Hopefully nothing too much … It’s normal that after one year [out] this happens, the doctors had already warned me, so I have to be careful and play more minutes,” Neymar posted on social media. His manager at Al-Hilal, Jorge Jesus, was more circumspect. “Unfortunately it’s not a simple injury and he seems to be suffering from muscle pain and it is not a knee issue”. The club have predicted a four-to-six week absence.
As Neymar slowly sauntered off after just his seventh appearance in 15 months in a game his team went on to win 3-0, there was a definite sense that his time in Saudi Arabia was coming to an end, but then it never really started. In August 2023, the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star became the third of the big three signings in the Saudi Pro League (SPL). Cristiano Ronaldo was obviously the first, becoming an Al-Nassr player in December 2022, paving the way for others to follow. Six months later, Karim Benzema joined Al-Ittihad in Jeddah – and then came Neymar.
Of the trio, Ronaldo has been the biggest success, breaking the league’s goalscoring record last season and keeping the competition in the headlines. Benzema’s time has been more mixed. The first season saw nine goals from the Frenchman, a couple of injuries and rumours of a falling out with the then-head coach Nuno Espírito Santo, but under compatriot Laurent Blanc, Benzema has already found the target eight times this season. Neymar, however, has barely registered, on the pitch at least.
There were questions in the summer of 2023, when the SPL became the talk of the football world, as to whether or not Al-Hilal actually needed him. This is, however, the most successful club in Saudi Arabia and Asia and they were never going to let their fellow Public Investment Fund stablemates land all the global superstars. A reported fee of over £80m was duly paid for the forward.
But then, just as Neymar was starting to get going, he ruptured his ACL while playing for Brazil. But Al-Hilal carried on regardless. They went on a world-record winning streak of 34 games and walked the league. This season too, the Blues have won 15 of their first 16 in all competitions to sit on top of the SPL table and their 12-team Champions League group.
Neymar wasn’t registered for the first half of the SPL season, from August to January. Al-Hilal had all the foreign players they were allowed in the league but no such limitations exist in Asia (a rule that Saudi Arabia pushed to change) hence his comeback in the Champions League. The big question now is whether Neymar will be registered in January. Many think that he won’t be. His contract finishes next summer and perhaps it would just be better to let him go so all parties can move on.
Except there is something. The Fifa Club World Cup takes place next summer in the United States, and while the expanded 32-team tournament may not be especially welcome in some parts of Europe the same can’t be said in the Middle East. Al-Hilal see it as a very big deal, and it could be that Neymar’s last act as an Al-Hilal player is to represent Saudi Arabia and Asia on the global stage.
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Whether he goes in the winter or the summer, the Americas look to be Neymar’s most likely destination. Inter Miami and a reunion with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez has been mentioned. So, too, has an emotional return home – to Santos, the club Neymar led in 2011, as a teenager, to a first Copa Libertadores title in 48 years.
Interest from the club seems to be there. “[We are] clear and objective, his father and his staff know it,” the Santos president, Marcelo Teixeira, said recently. “They know me, they know Santos. We have to wait because he has an active contract.”
There is still time for Neymar to end his Al-Hilal career in glory. Or it is just as likely that the last fans saw of him was as a subbed-off sub.
