The Ney York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/sports/soccer/neymar-psg-messi.html
A SPECTACULAR FAILURE
(UM FRACASSO ESPETACULAR)
08/02/2020
Neymar went to Paris to step out of Lionel Messi’s shadow, to live up to his billing as soccer’s next best thing. Nearly three years on,
the move has been a comprehensive failure.
Neymar’s birthday party this year was, in theory, supposed to be a discreet affair. A quiet night in Paris with a select few friends and teammates, proof of how much the Paris St.-Germain star has matured, evidence of his new attitude, testament to his renewed focus on making the most of his talent, on helping to deliver a first Champions League trophy to the club that made him the most expensive player in history.
[...]
And that’s what he got.
Neymar’s 28th birthday was just a regular night out: an entire Parisian nightclub taken over, the whole P.S.G. squad invited with their partners, as well as Neymar’s friends and sundry other players. Everyone dressed
exclusively in white. It was, in short,
the sort of evening any of us might arrange, really.
Neymar, you will remember,
left Barcelona — where he was part of the most feared front line in soccer with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez — and moved to Paris in the summer of 2017. He did so, those who knew him insisted, because he wanted to step out of Messi’s shadow, to be as central to a project as his old teammate had been to the rise of Barcelona.
He wanted to leave the supporting cast and take center stage.
Principally,
he wanted to win the Ballon d’Or, to be recognized as the finest player on the planet. He had, in recent years, been firmly established in the top five, even the top three, but he had always found himself behind Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
He could not make that final leap, he thought — with, it should be stressed, impeccable logic —
if he was not even recognized as the finest player on his team.
That first year, after he arrived, Neymar finished third in the Ballon d’Or voting.
A year later, he was down to 12th. This year, two Paris St.-Germain players made the final shortlist of 30. Kylian Mbappé ended up finishing sixth. Marquinhos was 28th.
Neymar was not even nominated. (He was absent, too, from the list of 10 finalists for the similar FIFA Best award.)
By his own criteria, nearing three seasons after he left Barcelona,
Neymar’s move to Paris can only be regarded as a spectacular failure.
<o artigo continua, recomendo a leitura do restante, porque a análise é muito boa>