About

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, more commonly known as Neymar, is a Brazilian professional soccer player who currently plays as a forward the French football club Paris Saint-Germain and the Brazilian national football team. Due to his impressive dribbling techniques and ambidexterity on the field, as well as his celebrity status in Brazilian pop culture, Neymar is often considered one of the most capable and famous forward players in professional soccer.

Career

Neymar began playing soccer in his adolescence, as early as at the age of 11, through impromptu games of street football and futsal (a five-on-five, hard court variation of football) in his home city of São Paulo, with early guidance provided by his father and former footballer, Neymar Santos Sr. At the age of 11, Neymar began his formal youth training with the Brazilian professional football club Santos FC, and later on, with the world-renowned Spanish professional club Real Madrid. At 17, Neymar made his professional debut as a forward for Santos FC in Brazil's premiere league. In 2013, after leading his team to multiple championship titles, Neymar moved to Spain to join FC Barcelona, where he played alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez as part of the team's main attacking trio. In 2017, Neymar left Barcelona to join the French club Paris Saint-Germain in a record-setting transfer worth €222 million (appx. $260 million USD).

Online Presence

Online, Neymar actively maintains official presence and engages with his fans through his social media channels; As of June 2018, Neymar has more than 60 million followers on Facebook, 40 million followers on Twitter and nearly 100 million followers on Instagram.

#WeAreAllMonkeys

#WeAreAllMonkeys (#SomosTodosMacacos in Portuguese) is a hashtag campaign started by Brazilian football star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior on Instagram in protest of racist hooliganism directed toward his teammate Daniel Alves in April 2014.

On April 27th, 2014, a season match between the Spanish football teams Barcelona FC and Villareal FC was held at the El Madrigal stadium in Villarreal, Spain. During the match, a supporter of Villareal tossed a banana at the feet of Barcelona's defender Daniel Alves, which is a common racist taunt used by hooligans towards non-European football players. Despite the insulting nature of this gesture, Alves calmly proceeded to pick up the banana and eat it on the field. That same day, the footage of Alves' clever response was subsequently uploaded to YouTube, gaining more than 863,000 views in the first 48 hours. Also on April 27th, Alves’ teammate Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior posted a photograph on Instagram in which he is shown holding a banana with a young boy, accompanied by the hashtag #weareallmonkeys (shown below). Within 48 hours, the post gained more than 558,000 likes.

Immediately after posting the photo to Instagram, Neymar tweeted a link to the picture which garnered more than 7,100 retweets and 4,100 favorites in 48 hours. According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy, the hashtag #weareallmonkeys was tweeted more than 97,800 times and the hashtag #NoAlRacismo (#NoToRacism in English) was tweeted upwards of 66,000 times that week.

Related Memes

Neymar's Dives

Neymar's Dives refer to jokes about Brazilian footballer Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior dramatically falling down in an attempt to win a foul call in several major games, including once while tussling with Uruguay defender Walter Gargano during the semi-final match of 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and again at the 2018 World Cup.

On June 26th, 2013, the FIFA Confederations Cup semi-final match between Brazil and Uruguay took place at the Mineirão stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In the 86th minute, score of 1 – 1, Neymar, a 21-year-old rising star who had recently signed with Spain's renowned FC Barcelona, assisted the tie-breaker with a corner kick which was then headed into the goal by Paulinho. Then in the 90th minute, with only overtime left in the game, Neymar got in a scuffle with Uruguay defender Walter Gargano, at which point he suddenly took a dive to feign a foul (edited footage shown below).

Neymar developed a reputation for diving from other players thanks to that game^[1][3][6] and others.

2018 World Cup

At the 2018 World Cup, Neymar was again seen making arguably disproportionate reactions to fouls against him, particularly in Brazil's match against Costa Rica (shown below).

This was joked about by soccer fans on social media. On Reddit, a post making fun of Neymar's dives calling them "highlights" gained over 540 points on /r/funny (shown below, left). Twitter users posted GIFs meant to represent Neymar diving; a popular example posted by @goal used a scene from Arrested Development to make the joke, gaining over 380 retweets and 500 likes (shown below, right).

Practicing "The Neymar"

On July 4th, 2018, during the 2018 World Cup, a video of a youth soccer organization "practicing" a Neymar impression went viral. In the video, a Swiss youth soccer team from are seen practicing when their coach yells "Neymar!" This causes the entire team to fall to the ground and writhe in pain as though they'd just suffered a grievous injury. The video has gained over 460,000 views in less than two days (shown below).

The video was covered by multiple news sources, including Daily Dot,^[11] Deadspin,^[12] USA Today,^[13] and more. Many of these articles mentioned how after Brazil defeated Mexico at the World Cup's round of 16, Mexican coach Juan Carlos Osorio stated that he was worried about how Neymar's antics would influence young soccer players. The articles humorously pointed out that the video proved Osorio's fears correct.

Reputation

Neymar has been favorably compared to Brazilian soccer star Pelé because of his style of play and similar background.^[10] He has also been compared to Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi for his high quality of play. He is generally thought of as one of the three best players in the world along with Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. He has been regularly recognized as one of the most famous and marketable athletes in the world by business and sports publications in the 2010s.

Personal Life

Neymar is a devout Christian and donates 10% of his income to his church. He has a son named Davi Lucca. He has signed many sponsorships with companies including Nike, Panasonic, Volkswagen, Beats, and others.

Search Interest

External References