Neymar broke into the top 10 of Santos club’s all-time leading goalscorers this week after scoring twice in a 2-1 win against Vasco da Gama in the Brazilian league.<\/p>\n
He also gathered more fans on his side in a bid to make Brazil’s squad for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The match on Thursday was only the third of the year for 34-year-old Neymar. He suffered an ACL injury in October 2023 and went through another knee surgery in December.<\/p>\n
Critics were impressed not only by Neymar scoring twice but also in the way he did. The first came from a crossed shot that showed more power and accuracy than he had recently displayed. The second came after a run and a gentle lob over the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n
“Last week some said I was the worst player in the world,” Neymar told SporTV after the game in a reference to a 2-1 defeat to Novorizontino in the Sao Paulo state championship. “But today I scored twice and that’s what matters. One day you’re no good, you should retire, on the other you have to go to the World Cup.”<\/p>\n
Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti has repeatedly said he will take only players who are 100% fit to the World Cup. But local players, analysts and coaches are increasingly defending Neymar’s credentials even if he is not at his best form.<\/p>\n
“I am almost 100% sure he will take Neymar,” former Brazil and Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo told Globo Esporte. “He knows he will need Neymar’s intelligence and skill.”<\/p>\n
He became Santos\u2019 10th highest goalscorer with 151 in two stints. Pel\u00e9 tops the list with 1,061. Neymar is Brazil\u2019s all-time top goalscorer with 79 in 125 matches.<\/p>\n
Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Neymar broke into the top 10 of Santos club’s all-time leading goalscorers this week after scoring twice in a 2-1 win against Vasco da Gama in the Brazilian league. He also gathered more fans on his side in a bid to make Brazil’s squad for the World Cup. The match on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}