What If Neymar Had Stayed in Brazil and Never Moved to Europe?

There is a school of thought that would have you believe a footballer must play in Europe in order to be properly measured; that unless he is already based on the continent he must move there in order to have his ability quantified and his legacy established.

This line of thinking traces back several decades but is especially rooted in the 1990s and the first few years of the 2000s, when that great exporter of footballers—Brazil—was forced to sell its top talent early and often because its own division could neither afford to keep them nor turn down the lucrative offers of their neo-colonialist counterparts across the Atlantic.

It was an unfortunate paradigm, but one that is thankfully outdated. That said, there are still those who hold firm to its rationale, as if pretending a sea change in the paradigm isn’t on its way—indeed, isn’t happening right now—will somehow delay it. (They may also deny global warming, or that summer follows spring.)

It is thinking laced with equal parts arrogance and ignorance and flies not only in the face of common sense, but against credible, numerical data as well.

Since 1984, the Bonn, Germany-based International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) has been publishing an annual ranking of the strongest domestic leagues in the world. Spain topped the list in 2012, but what came after raised eyebrows—that is, of course, unless you had been feeling the winds of change since they started blowing.

Brazil came in second, and while the IFFHS admitted its valuation was slightly skewed by Corinthians’ defeat of Chelsea at the FIFA Club World Cup, it went on to say that even without the tournament’s inclusion in the equation, Brazil’s Serie A would have ranked fourth on the list, behind La Liga, the Bundesliga and the Italian Serie A—but still ahead of England’s Premier League.

Concurrent development

It’s impossible to separate Neymar from studies such as this, from the development of a country—not just a football league—that has been growing exponentially the last eight or nine years.

When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected Brazilian president in 2003, Neymar was 10 years old and the country’s economy was ranked outside the top 10 in the world. But by the time the attacker had made his competitive debut for Santos, Brazil’s economy had risen to eighth, and when he finalized his move to Barcelona last month it had leapfrogged the United Kingdom into sixth.

CNN estimates it will surpass France by 2016, with only the United States, China, Japan and Germany seeing more economic activity.

In football-mad Brazil, some of that activity was always going to involve the country’s top league and biggest clubs, and in recent years a flood of television money and sponsorship revenue have combined to allow star players to remain in their homeland longer (Leandro Damiao, Paulino, Dede)—earning wages comparable to what they’d make in Europe—while creating a set of circumstances conducive to the repatriation of others, such as Cassio, Alexandre Pato and Luiz Fabiano.

Neymar grew up while all this was happening, and because of that he came to embody the rise of a robust, energetic Brazil.

This is why the 21-year-old was always more than a footballer to many of his countrymen. As Brazil’s best player he was also its icon, its ambassador, and had he remained at Santos his stature as a sort of national demigod would have only continued to grow.

Perhaps the pressure of it all played some part in his decision to leave the club for Barcelona, but he leaves behind a league and a country each in good health, ready to nurture and perhaps even retain the generation of players that will follow him.

Risk

As it became more and more apparent that he was mulling a move to Europe, several of his teammates and coaches went public with their desire that Neymar remain in Brazil.

Among them was Fluminense striker Fred, who told reporters, “We Brazilians have to thank God to have a player like [Neymar] in Brazil. We have to strengthen the chorus of support to stay here, but in the end he will decide.” (Goal)

He added: “Brazilian football is at a very high level, and it will help the country with the 2014 World Cup if our stars stay close to home.”

And therein lies the most obvious, immediate risk to Neymar’s exit a year in advance of the tournament.

National team manager Luiz Felipe Scolari will obviously be able to see his best player as much as he wants—technology has made the football world a small place—but it was with Santos that Neymar played his way into Brazil’s starting lineup; it was at the Vila Belmiro that he starred week in, week out, in a leading role.

Barcelona are unable to offer such guarantees, and while Neymar will likely secure regular, first-team football at Camp Nou on the strength of his abilities alone, his transition is still not a certainty.

Not only will there be new teammates, coaches and systems for him to adapt to, but a new country and lifestyle as well. On the one hand, experience in Europe could make him an even more well-rounded player ahead of the World Cup. On the other hand, it could deal a serious blow to his confidence, affecting his performances for Brazil.

Another year at Santos would have prevented this conundrum, and it would surely have been the more popular decision in his home country as well.

But Brazilian football will go on without Neymar.

Although he helped build it into the colossus it has become, it doesn’t need him to continue the process. It has matured beyond overreliance. It matured while he did. And there will come a day, probably not too far off in the future, when Brazil’s top superstar will play his entire career at home.

Economics, competitiveness and a new paradigm will see that it happens.