Neymar and another injury that puts his participation on hold: what happened to him in the last two World Cups

“Have faith”. Neymar asked on Thursday, after Brazil beat Serbia 2-0 in their World Cup debut in Qatar, but also after the right ankle injury which had forced him to leave the Lusail Stadium field prematurely. Then again he didn’t know exactly the seriousness of a situation that will marginalize him at least from the next two games for his team. Again, as in Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018a physical condition conditions the participation of crack in a World Cup.

Nikola Milenkovic’s hard cross on the break in the 21st minute of the second half, when the green yellow was already 1-0 up, forced him off 13 minutes later (in his place Antony) and provoked him “a tear to the lateral ligament of the right ankle, along with a little bone inflammation”according to Rodrigo Lasmar, doctor of the Brazilian national team, after the studies that the Paris Saint-Germain footballer underwent on Friday before the training that his teammates carried out at the Grand Hamad stadium.

Lasmar confirmed that Ney will miss the matches with Switzerland (Monday) and Cameroon (next Friday), but asked for “a lot of calm” and “tranquility” in speculating on the player’s physical evolution. The doctor, who began working with his country’s national team in 2002, has already had to experience complex situations with the number 10 as the protagonist. Some of them, at the World Cup.

In 2014, after his first season at Barcelona with Lionel Messi, Neymar played his first World Cup in his country. Pilot on the pitch and spiritual leader of the team, the striker had scored four goals in his first four games for Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side. But on July 4, in the duel against Colombia at the Castelão de Fortaleza stadium for the quarterfinals, the tournament ended for him.

There were five minutes left in the match, which the locals were winning 2-1 with goals from Thiago Silva and David Luiz (James Rodríguez, from a penalty, had served for those led by José Pekerman) when Neymar, who arrived with just enough play after a week with various pains, he went looking for the ball after a rejection in the Brazilian area. Before I could check it, Camilo Zúñiga attacked him from behind. The Brazilian was lying down and could no longer get up: he was transported on a stretcher and transferred by ambulance to the Sao Carlos hospital.

Then it was also Lasmar’s turn to give the bad news: “He underwent a tomography which revealed a fracture in the third vertebra of the lumbar region, risk 1. It is not a serious fracture, but it limits movement. He doesn’t need surgery, but he won’t be able to play.”. Four days later and without his star, Brazil went down 7 to 1 with Germany in Belo Horizonte in one of the semifinals of the tournament. Then they lost 3-0 to the Netherlands in Brasilia in the duel for third place.

In Russia 2018the star born in Mogi das Cruzes, who moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in August 2017 in exchange for 222 million euros, was able to stay on the pitch for all the minutes his team played, even if it didn’t do it in optimal conditionssince he arrived to compete in the race after a long inactivity that had prevented him from stepping on the grass and competing for three and a half months just before the World Cup.

That year had begun ney with a nuisance in his right thigh that had sidelined him from a couple of PSG games. But the worst was yet to come: on February 25, in a match against Olympique de Marseille at the Parc des Princes for the 27th round of the French championship, he tried to play the ball with the Senegalese Bouna Sarr, he sprained his right ankle and had to leave the field with evident gestures of pain.

Studies carried out the same day at the American Hospital in Paris indicated that he had suffered a sprain of the anterior external ligament and a fissure of the fifth metatarsal. For this reason, six days later he was operated on at the Mater Dei hospital in Belo Horizonte. The surgery manager was right Rodrigo Lasmar.

The striker did not wear his team’s shirt again for the rest of the season, although this did not stop Tite from including him in the 23-man squad for the World Cup. On May 22, he began training at the Brazilian Football Confederation-owned facility in Teresópolis and on June 3 just two weeks before the debut in the most important national team tournament on the planetplayed again: played 45 minutes (and scored one goal) in a friendly against Croatia in Liverpool.

With their figure in the middle of the tank, Brazil got through the first round without difficulty, even if with a scare on their debut against Switzerland, not so much because of the 1-1 draw, but because ney he closed the match with a nuisance in the same ankle that had forced him to take so long a break. “It was a big blow, but it’s nothing to worry about. When he’s cold, it hurts a little. But I’m fine. As the matches go by, I feel better, ”he explained.

In subsequent duels, the crack became the victory against Costa Rica, which went unnoticed in the victory against Serbia; He scored again, assisted and shone against Mexico in the round of 16 and showed no signs of pain. In the quarterfinals, Belgium put an end to the dream of Canarinha and Neymar completed his second World Cup with another sad face.

Physical ailments didn’t affect him only at the World Cup. In 2019 he lost the Copa América because he pulled the external lateral ligament in his cursed right ankle during a friendly match against Qatar nine days before the start of the tournament. And in past Qualifiers he has missed five games due to injuries: against Venezuela and Uruguay in November 2020 with left adductor discomfort; against Argentina in November 2021 with a left adductor ailment; and against Ecuador and Paraguay in January and February of this year due to a sprained left ankle.