Neymar

Neymar (born February 5, 1992) is a retired Brazilian footballer who played as a forward, best known for his participation on treble-winning FC Barcelona and Paris St.-Germain sides and for his time with the Brazil national football team, for whom he is the all-time leading goalscorer with 103 goals.

Neymar led Brazilian club Santos to a Copa Libertadores win in 2011 and in 2013 moved to FC Barcelona in a controversial transfer. At Barcelona, he became part of the "MSN" front-line along with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez that broke scoring records and dominated Europe, winning an unprecedented second treble for the club in 2015. In 2016, he earned a double with Barcelona and then moved to PSG that summer in the biggest transfer in football history. At PSG from 2016 until 2023, he was part of a side that won the Ligue One six out of the seven spells he was there and earned a continental treble in 2018 as part of one of the greatest sides in the history of sport as PSG went undefeated in Ligue One for the first time ever and went undefeated in Coupe de France play. Neymar would score 76 goals for PSG in the 2017-18 season, earning him a Ballon d'Or the following February. He would place second in Ballon d'Or voting in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively, and in 2021 and 2022 his teammate Paul Pogba won the award.

Despite tremendous play at PSG during his time there, he never matched the heights of the mid-2010s after PSG lost the 2021 Ligue One title and 2021 Champions League title within the span of weeks. Neymar spent most of the 2021-22 season injured and transferred to Real Madrid in 2023. He was whistled at the Bernabeu by his former FC Barcelona supporters as he scored twice against his old time his first time back and was part of the Real Madrid side that won La Liga in 2025 while losing 5-0 to Dortmund in the 2025 Champions League Final. Neymar, struggling with injuries for all of 2025-26, retired from the game that summer.

Widely considered one of the best forwards of his generation and of all time, and ranked as the best Brazilian player ever in some publications, Neymar captained Brazil for most of the 2010s and 2020s, leading them to victories in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics on home soil, their first Copa América in twelve years on home soil in 2019, and a runner-up place at the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup. Neymar was also part of the 2014 World Cup team that placed fourth and on the 2018 and 2022 sides that advanced to the quarterfinals.