Neymar: a Pelé for the 21st century

The summons came from the president of Santos Football Club, Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro. On the evening of August 23 last year, Neymar´s father, also called Neymar da Silva Santos, the star´s agent and another dozen executives from banks, construction companies and advertising agencies with an interest in the forward´s career met in a room in a large bank in São Paulo. Neymar, aged 18, had just received an offer worth 35 million euros to transfer to the English club Chelsea. When everyone had sat down, Luis Alvaro switched the light off and the projector on. The screen showed an image of an empty chair. To the surprise of those present, he said, “This is the chair of the great Brazilian sports idol. It has been empty since the death of Ayrton Senna.” He paused dramatically then added, “If Neymar accepts our proposal to stay in Santos, he will be taking the first step towards sitting in it.” A few seconds passed to give the group enough time for the message to sink in and then Luis Alvaro´s mobile rang. He showed no surprise whatsoever (either about the call or the timing, as it had been arranged in advance) and announced that Pelé was on the line asking to talk to Neymar senior. Neymar´s father then spoke to Pelé for 15 minutes during which the greatest player in history and Santos´ supreme idol made an appeal for Neymar to remain at the club. The rest is history. The latest chapter occurred last Wednesday when Neymar da Silva dos Santos Junior gave one of his incredible performances at Pacaembu stadium, with a repertoire of dribbles, dashes and on-target shots that led Santos to a title that the club had not won since 1963 and also made him the latest candidate for the chair of Brazil´s national idol.

This was the peak of a trajectory that is still a long way from reaching its highest point. Neymar´s business agents believe he has not even reached the halfway point in this ladder which is gaining new steps with every conquest. The trainer Betinho who met him when he was only six intended making the boy a star. He saw Neymar for the first time when his father took the boy to watch a seven-a-side match in which he would take part in São Vicente. Betinho was known in the city for having “discovered” another star, Robinho. When he saw Neymar running through the terraces, Betinho noted that he had greater motor coordination than the others boys of the same age. He thought that he could have the talent to play football and agreed with his father that he would train the boy. When Neymar was 12 and was already in the Santos youth training scheme, Betinho took him to businessman Wagner Ribeiro with the following recommendation, “They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place. However, there have been three bolts of lightning in Vila Belmiro (Santos´ ground) — Pelé, Robinho and now this Neymar I am bringing you to look after.” Only a few months were needed for Ribeiro, then one of the most successful businessmen in football, to be convinced that the mini star could become one of the best in the world. Last year, when the president of Santos managed to sidestep Chelsea´s proposal and keep Neymar in the club, a few more steps had already been taken up the ladder. Nowadays, when Luis Alvaro, Wagner Ribeiro and Neymar senior look up, they do not just see a star and one of the best players in the world. They see “the” best player in the world, who will win this title playing outside Europe, i.e. in Brazil. This would be an unheard of achievement and would not be a coincidence by any means. Besides Neymar himself, two dozen people are working day and night for this to happen.

Neymar rose rapidly but it was really after the Chelsea proposal that his career really took off. After getting the proposal out of the way, his business advisors decided to prepare him to handle success at stratospheric levels. They hired a communication company to train him to speak. In the football world, this means teaching the players to say nothing more than platitudes and rehearsed phrases so they do not talk nonsense or allow themselves to be provoked. An advisor from the club was appointed to accompany all his steps with the same idea so he would not make mistakes or be taunted. A full-time physiologist was appointed to take care of him exclusively. The result was that in one year and a half, the skinny Neymar gained nine kilos, six in muscular mass, and reduced his body fat rate to 7%, four points below the average for football players. The training was so efficient that Neymar has never missed a game because of contusions (bruising) since turning professional. Santos also hired a team of teachers for the star — of English, Spanish and general subjects — as well as the services of a psychologist and a speech therapist. Finally, a committee of executives started managing his finances, under the command of José Berenguer, vice-president of Santander bank. This is a huge investment but has a guaranteed return.

Neymar is not only a phenomenon on the pitch but has an inborn sense of marketing which led him to invent a style and have fun manipulating his own image. He has a crested hairstyle, dyes it blond, wears a white wrist support then a black hand support and pulls his socks over his knees. He gets what he wants in everything he does. He is different from everybody else and everybody loves him. He is called upon to sell anything from mobile phones to mortadella sausages. He has more than 1.2 million followers on Twitter and is the main star of advertising campaigns, with seven on the air in the last 12 months. Advertising expert Washington Olivetto says, “Neymar is the best example of a ‘footpop-player’, a mixture of a football player and a pop artist, who brings together the skills of a star with the irreverence of an artist. This profile has a very wide commercial range.”

Neymar earns around R$ 1 million a month from football and marketing activities. Since Chelsea´s failed proposal, Santos has been paying him R$ 150,000 a month and helps him find contracts, of which 30% goes to the club and 70% to the player. “If he stays at Santos to the end of the year, Neymar will earn more than R$ 2 million a month, the same salary level as the biggest stars in Europe,” claims the club president. Last Wednesday´s victory alone increased his bank balance by another R$ 1 million from sponsorship fees. His success has also boosted Santos and not only because he restored the team to the pedestal of the elite of the football world. With the 30% from Neymar´s advertising contracts the club is entitled to, it pays R$ 150,000 to its star but retains R$ 250,000 which is enough to pay for the team´s other idol, Paulo Henrique Ganso.

NUMBER 1 IN ADVERTISING – Alongside Ganso, advertising shaving products: he sells everything from mobile phones to mortadella sausages (Robson Fernandes/AE)

Although he is already regarded as a millionaire, Neymar does not squander his money in expensive restaurants or go out much to fashionable night clubs. However, he splashes out on clothes and electronic gadgets, particularly on international trips when he is out of his father´s sight. “He is relaxed in Brazil and the money I give him never runs out. The trouble is in the duty free shop,” says Neymar senior. “He buys all the electronic devices he sees, even the ones he already has.” Until now, his father gives him R$ 10,000 a month and invests the rest of the money. The player not only needs his father´s authorization when it comes to spending. For example, at the end of last year he wanted to have three tattoos: the name of his parents on his wrists and a dragon on his back. After giving the matter a lot of thought, his father allowed him to have the first two, bearing his name and that of his wife, Nadine, but vetoed the idea of the dragon.

Neymar has three inseparable friends, all from his amateur football days: Joclécio Amâncio, Gil Cebola and Cosme Meirelles. When he is not training, he plays his favorite video games with them, such as Fifa 2011 or Need for Speed. The friends can easily pass six hours in front of the television. Their favorite place when they go out to eat is a Japanese “temake” restaurant. They used to split the bill but nowadays Neymar pays for everything. He is only allowed to go to parties if he has played really well in his latest game or has a day off. This is part of the deal with his father. “When there is a great party, we always tell Neymar to have a fun time. If he is not doing well, we stay at home together, playing videogames,” says one of his friends. Neymar only drinks guaraná (a Brazilian soft drink) and energy drinks and is constantly monitored on his father´s behalf by someone who is always present when he goes out at night. Neymar´s family are evangelical Protestants which is also how he describes himself. “Whenever possible”, he goes to the Igreja Batista Peniel church in São Vicente with his friends. However, he has given up a habit he had until last year of giving the church a tithe from his earnings.

Despite this tight family control, Neymar´s good boy image has been tarnished at times. A row with manager Dorival Júnior – who would not let him take a penalty and ended up being fired – was the most publicized episode but there have been others. On May 4, Neymar´s father was in his office in São Paulo when he received a call from an advisor to his son asking him to go immediately to Santos. When he arrived at the apartment, he found his wife, Nadine, and their two children, Neymar and Rafaela, waiting for him on the sofa.

Neymar Junior then announced that he had made a 17-year-old girl pregnant. He had had a brief affair with her during which they had had unprotected sex. The girl was in her fifth month of pregnancy and it was already known that the baby was a boy. Neymar claimed he had only learned the news from the girl and her parents the previous evening. “It was a shock at the time,” said his father. “Nobody had expected that because it went against everything I have always taught Juninho (Junior). However, he is responsible and will learn to take care of the child just as we take care of him.” The families met the following day and decided to conceal the mother´s identity. Lawyers from both sides also agreed on a monthly allowance Neymar will pay for the boy which the family will not reveal. The future parents no longer have a relationship nor any intention of marrying. Nevertheless, Neymar repeats the right mantra expected of a good boy who is a veteran of media training. “I am going to give my son all the love in the world. It was a shock but a good thing that will make me mature.” He has not always followed the script of the responsible, modest boy but sometimes falters and gives in to the petulant behavior typical of fame and age. On Monday afternoon, for example, he roared into the Rei Pelé Training Center, burning the tires of his Porsche and then argued with a photographer who had snapped the scene. When it was time to pose for a photo session, he refused to take off his baseball cap (“my hair is not done”) or be photographed sitting down (“it will make my new shorts dirty”).

Although he has a contract with Santos until 2015, nobody expects him to stay that long. With the title of the Libertadores championship and the dispute for the Copa América as the main player in Brazil in the bag, he has become the biggest target of the transfer season for European clubs. Five of them have already approached Luis Alvaro and are ready to pay a fine of 45 million euros to take him from Santos. Four are among the main teams in Europe: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester City. The other, Anzhi, is from the emerging Russian football scene where Brazilians like Roberto Carlos and Diego Tardelli already play. “If a club pays the fine and Neymar wants to go, I can´t hold him back. However, he is now a matter of national interest, as important to Brazil as the pre-salt oil reserves,” he joked.

Despite the efforts of the Santos leadership, Wagner Ribeiro and Neymar´s father are already preparing his move. Although they do not admit it publically, the feeling is that he will now reach an agreement with Real Madrid and move to Spain in the middle of 2012. The Libertadores title and the possibility of playing and winning against Barcelona and Messi in the Club World Cup competition in December in Japan should give Santos the power to hold onto its idol for another year. “I always want more. I am not a guy who is happy with little. I want more titles. I want more goals. I want more of everything. I have dreams and targets to achieve. I want to be the best in the world here in Santos before going to Europe,” Neymar told Veja. There are talents in football that rise like a rocket only to plummet from the sky soon afterwards, sadly burnt out. Others keep themselves aloft long enough to inscribe their names in the sky among those stars. However, there are few, very few, for whom the gods of the football field reserve another destiny: to become myths. Neymar has no doubt that this is his destiny. Nor has he taken his eyes off that chair.

With reporting from Alexandre Salvador and Kalleo Coura

The creation of an idol

Neymar was not just trained to be a great player but also to be transformed into a football idol right from childhood

When he was 6

He was discovered by Betinho who was also  Robinho´s trainer. He noted that Neymar had above average motor coordination and reached an agreement with his family to train him

When he was 7

He began to train to professional standards: he carried out exercises on the sand to gain muscular resistance and was taught to kick the ball with both feet which he now does masterfully

When he was 11
He only had one day off a week. He trained four times weekly and reserved two days for indoor and outdoor matches. He was the astro of all the teams he played in

When he was 12

He entered the Santos youth training scheme and signed a contract with Wagner Ribeiro, one of the most successful football agents in Brazil. Ribeiro started to look after the boy´s career and bet that he could be one of the best players in the world

When he was 13

Ribeiro put Neymar on a plane and took him to Spain to introduce him to the Real Madrid management. Impressed by his dribbling skills, the Spaniards offered him a house, a car and 10,000 euros a month to contract him. Santos had to pay the same amount to hold onto him. It has looked after the boy´s image since then, publicizing his achievements and grooming him in giving interviews

When he was 17
He was already receiving R$ 55,000 a month before making his debut with a professional team and regarded as the greatest revelation in the Santos youth program for many years

When he was 18

He received a proposal worth millions from the English team Chelsea. Santos convinced him to stay by offering a marketing plan to transform him into the “greatest idol of Brazilian sport” which included payments of R$ 1 million a month. Neymar stayed and had professional advisers to guide his career, as well as a psychologist, speech therapist and teachers of English, Spanish and general knowledge. His investments started being managed by a vice-president of Banco Santander

When he was 19

He was the star when Santos won the  Libertadores championship for the third time. Now, as well as winning the Club World Cup championship at the end of the year, he dreams of breaking a taboo and being elected the best player in the world while playing for a Brazilian club. He is pinning his hopes on the 2014 World Cup being his greatest triumph

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