The 1996 song “Children” by Robert Miles has been on my mind lately. Written on a Kurzweil K2000, the song was composed with a standard piano, laced with synth bass and string/pad sounds bathed in delay and reverb. I’m a massive synth fan, if you didn’t know.
This isn’t the full story.
I was sitting on my phone the other day, watching TikTok edits. I came across an edit of Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior flicking the ball over a Villarreal player before gently placing it into the bottom corner. Miles’ song was playing in the background. The words on the screen? “Where is your Ballon d’Or? Don’t need it.”
That got me thinking.
To date, Neymar has had a confusing and frustrating career. Neymar began in São Paulo, playing futsal and street football, both of which have shaped his dazzling technique and extraordinary ability to move in tight spaces later in his career. A brief youth stint came at Portuguesa Santista, before Neymar signed for Santos, where he played in both the youth academy and senior team, netting 107 goals en route to securing a move to Barcelona.
An incredible player at Barcelona, he found himself perpetually in Lionel Messi’s shadow. It’s difficult when your competition is the greatest player of all time. At 25, Neymar moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in an effort to step out of that shadow and finally complete his quest for the Ballon d’Or.
It didn’t work out that way. Injuries and disputes meant he never cracked the top-ten of the Ballon d’Or rankings at PSG, a far cry from his third-place finishes at Barcelona. When PSG triggered his €222 million release clause, Neymar signed a contract totaling €43,334,400 per year. Yet, between 2017 and 2022, he played just 112 games for Les Parisiens.
Perhaps the most important part, though, was this: The football world seemed to have been moving on. PSG was preoccupied with their new starboy, Kylian Mbappé, who had emerged onto the center stage in the post-Messi-Ronaldo era. Once again, Neymar found himself in the shadows.
Following a less-than-forgettable stint in Saudi Arabia, today, he finds himself playing for his boyhood club in Santos. And it isn’t all terrible. Playing through a meniscus injury, he scored four goals and assisted once to help Santos avoid relegation. But at age 34, it looks as though we will never see Neymar on the biggest stage again.
Despite all the shortcomings, if someone told me Neymar wasn’t the third-best player of our generation, I’d laugh in their face.
In order to figure out Neymar’s competition, we must define the chasing pack, which undoubtedly will make many of you angry. For the sake of simplicity, the people I see as in the most direct competition are Luis Suárez –– who played alongside Neymar –– Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema and even Sergio Agüero.
Now, you might argue, what about midfielders? Andrés Iniesta, Xavi, Toni Kroos and Luka Modrić might also claim that title. Modrić in particular is tricky, being the only person to win a Ballon d’Or –– something Neymar doesn’t have –– in the Messi-Ronaldo era. But midfielders live in a different evaluative universe, and often aren’t represented fairly. A different conversation for a different day.
For many, the best method of comparison is G/A — goals plus assist contributions. A bit short-sighted, maybe, but a good baseline. I can’t argue that measuring efficiency is a necessary statistic for attackers.
According to IGScore Neymar has netted 442 goals and 286 assists in 728 games, totalling 728 goal contributions.
Compared to the others, he stacks up well. Benzema trails him in total contributions despite playing more games, and Agüero falls well short. Suárez and Lewandowski do edge him out in raw goal contributions with over 850, but they did so as out-and-out strikers, and in significantly more matches.
Let us not forget Neymar is a winger.
More importantly, his footballing style and fame shone like liquid diamonds. It extended beyond simply G/A. You can argue that Lewandowski should have won a Ballon d’Or or two and that Suárez protected his legacy better by staying at Barcelona and then reuniting with Messi at Inter Miami, but neither bent the culture the way Neymar did.
Growing up, you wanted to be like Neymar. We knew Messi and Ronaldo were better. That wasn’t the point. I remember being in the car on the way to my soccer games at age eight, watching my friends listen to Neymar highlights to the tune of trap music.
Suarez scored. Modric operated. Neymar played. That was the difference. Today, when kids step onto concrete pitches in São Paulo, Paris, or even the suburbs of London, they don’t emulate efficiency. They copy Neymar’s stepovers and cut their socks.
That’s what matters.
When football feels calculated, too efficient, too mathematical, sometimes I stop and look back. It makes me sad that Neymar isn’t on the biggest stage anymore. Because he defined what it meant to play freely.
Maybe Neymar never needed a Ballon d’Or. Inspiring an entire generation was probably enough.
Otto Fritton PZ ’27 is an avid Peanuts fan. He finds Charles M. Schulz’s portrayal of Charlie Brown and the Little Red-Haired Girl fantastic; the perfect example of unrequited love. He wonders if Charlie will ever truly succeed, and suspects that’s exactly the point.
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