Meet Neymar: The man who carries the hopes of a nation By Robin Bairner in Fortaleza Brazil is currently a country bedecked almost exclusively in yellow and green. Anything that can have a flag pinned to it, from buildings to cars, is covered in the national colours, and of course the people have responded by hoovering up replica strips, many of which are unofficial, to wear for the duration of the World Cup. While the matching colours are remarkable only by their sheer volume, the most notable aspect of all these football shirt-clad locals is that the number on the back is invariable. Almost without exception, everyone has a top bearing the name of Neymar Jnr, and those who don’t seem to have strips from before the youngster’s era. WORLD CUP SOCIAL HUB Keep up with all the latest news from Brazil and get involved in the debate on Twitter with our new World Cup Social Hub The 22-year-old has the hopes of a nation on his back, while the nation has his name on its back. It is hard to overstate the love for Neymar in Brazil. Of course fans the world over have their favourites, though no journalist here seems to have seen anything remotely on this scale of fervour for one individual. “His marketing team is very powerful,” Daniel Herculeno, a local journalist from the Tribune do Ceara explains. “His focus is not always entirely on football. Instead, he prefers to raise his profile and earn the financial rewards that that brings.” Certainly, the image of the young forward appears to be cast ubiquitously around the country, from shirts to newspapers, billboards and television, Neymar is everywhere. Captain Thiago Silva, popular defender David Luiz and other prominent figures in the Selecao squad are all peripheral when it comes to advertising and media exposure, and they may as well be non-existent in the shadow of the precocious young forward. Some, such as Luiz Gustavo, dubbed “one of the most important players in the national team” by his...
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 11:13:40 +0000