Tim VickeryMay 21, 2026, 11:49 AM ET

It is difficult to think of Neymar as being 34 years old; he has always been seen as a "boy prince" striving but never quite managing to be crowned king.

In fairness to him, the bar was always placed absurdly high. Right from the start of his career when he broke through at Santos at age 17, the winger was presented with two nonnegotiable objectives: lift the World Cup and win the Ballon d'Or. These were Brazilian birthrights which had somehow slipped into foreign hands, and it was up to this skinny teenager to reclaim them.

So it is little wonder that at times it has all seemed too much -- especially after a serious knee injury sustained while playing for the national team in October 2023 threatened to bring an end to his quest. Battling back has not been easy, and Neymar has confessed to going through mental problems on his path to redemption.

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Now he is playing his club football back in Brazil with Santos -- after spells with Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Al Hilal -- the Ballon d'Or looks to have passed him by.

But Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti has handed him a fourth, and surely final, crack at the World Cup. Lifting the trophy on July 19 would put a different spin on his entire career.

The news of Neymar's recall was greeted with an explosion of noise. By no means everyone in Brazil agrees that he should have been included in the 26-man squad, but those in favor are both numerous and vociferous and, at the squad announcement, they had been let inside the tent -- a hall full of celebrities and influencers went berserk when his name was announced.

It is the kind of noise that Neymar has always attracted, but this kind of hullabaloo was now around a very different player.

Neymar's international debut came almost 16 years ago against the U.S., in Brazil's first game after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The golden generation of Ronaldinho and Adriano were flaming out early; Kaka had run into injury trouble. Right from the start, then, Neymar was seen as "the guy" -- the go-to star and a special talent from whom extraordinary things were expected.

With the exception of his spell with Barcelona in the shadow of Lionel Messi, that is the way it has been everywhere he has played; certainly whenever he has pulled on the famous yellow shirt of Brazil. But this adulation, surely, has now come to an end.

Many of his most fanatical supporters would deny it, but it appears beyond doubt that time and injuries have taken their toll. Injuries have long been a problem -- especially that big one in 2023 -- and he has spent 18 months back in Brazil with Santos because his previous club in Saudi Arabia came to the conclusion that it was not worth registering him for the local league because he was not fit enough.

Decisively, it seems, he has put together a sequence of matches in the last few weeks -- although, perhaps significantly, he ducked some of the tougher away games. While there have been occasional flashes of his skills, his displays have hardly been earth shattering and his former teammate Luis Suárez, for example, was far more impressive in the year he spent with Gremio recently.

Ancelotti's decision to include Neymar, then, is essentially an act of faith in two parts.

The first is the hope that enough of the winger's greatness remains to make this worthwhile, and that this is not a repeat of Garrincha going to the 1966 World Cup based on prestige when his body was no longer able to meet the demands of the game.

In the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Brazil's-then coach Tite described Neymar as both bow and arrow. Now, the speed of his arrow is reduced, but the precision of his bow could be very useful. His set-piece deliveries are as dangerous as ever, and the pace and trickery of Vinícius Júnior and Raphinha would be enhanced by the presence of a player with the capacity to see and execute the killer pass.

It could work, although the evidence of the last few weeks leaves some powerful doubts: At the highest level, will Neymar be able to get away from his marker to make the pass? Has he lost some of his balance -- the key asset that underpins all the others -- or might it in return in time?

The moment Brazil fans inside the Museu do Amanhã discovered Neymar has been included in the World Cup squad.

Reading between the lines, Ancelotti effectively admitted the existence of these questions in Monday's news conference and stressed that Neymar still has a few more weeks to get into better shape.

The coach, a solid midfielder in his own playing days, has always had a reverence for talent and is showing faith that enough of the old Neymar remains to help them win the World Cup together. But Ancelotti is also showing faith in his own capacity to control the forces he has unleashed.

The fuss around Neymar is not going to go away just because he has been called up; if anything, it will increase. The new public battleground will be a campaign to get him into the starting XI.

At the moment, it would seem that Neymar does not figure in Ancelotti's planned XI for the opening game against Morocco on June 13. And, of course, it is up to him to change that with his actions on the training ground.

Yet Ancelotti's message should be that he might have cut the 34-year-old a little slack to get him in the squad, but from now on there will be no special privileges. He is simply one of a squad of 26, with equal rights and responsibilities. This is not the kind of message that Neymar is accustomed to hearing. so how will he cope with it? It could be a welcome and overdue dose of tough love, but there is no doubt that the entire group dynamic will be altered by his return, which is a dangerous thing to mess with.

Neymar is extremely popular inside the dressing room -- which was cited by Ancelotti as another reason for his recall -- but none of the players have ever dealt with a situation where Neymar was not the first name on the teamsheet. An extra layer of uncertainty has been added.

Ancelotti, meanwhile, radiates the calm of someone entirely unflustered by all the fuss. If that is still the case at the end of the final on July 19, it will mean that Brazil have won the World Cup and that Neymar, this time almost certainly in a supporting role, will have gained his redemption.

Every disappointment, every setback, every injury, every time he was mocked and scorned - it will all be seen as preamble to the tale of his great comeback. Of all the many narrative lines around the coming World Cup, few are as gripping as the last chance for Brazil's "boy prince" to finally get his hands on the crown.

Source: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48833290/ancelotti-neymar-pick-brazil-act-faith-reap-rewards