In the world of football, Brazil has always produced superstars like Pele, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Roberto Carlos, etc. Neymar Junior has booked a special place amongst these football superstars by displaying his charismatic dribbling skills.
Before looking into some lesser-known facts about Neymar Junior, let’s get some basic information about him. Born on 5th Feb 1992, Neymar’s full name is Neymar da Silva Santos Junior. Neymar is currently playing as a forward in club Paris Saint-Germain and also the Brazilian National football team.
Now, here are seven interesting and lesser-known facts about Neymar Junior.
Neymar was spotted at a very young age by a prominent football club, Santos FC, and was offered a contract in 2003, where he was accepted into their youth academy. He made his debut on March 7th, 2009, when he was only 17 years old. He didn't score any goal on his debut match; his first goal came in a match against Mogi Mirim.
Making an interesting start to his international career for the Brazil team, Neymar made his debut in August of 2010 by playing in a friendly match against the United States. Neymar scored his first-ever goal in the Brazil jersey. It is said that earlier that year, football giants of the likes of Pele and Romario had pushed Dunga, the former manager of the Brazilian team, to include Neymar Jr in the 2010 World Cup. Around 14,000 fans of Neymar had also signed a petition for his inclusion in the team. Fun fact: Neymar didn’t even make it into the stand-by list that year.
If you did not know, Neymar was awarded the very famous FIFA Puskas award back in 2011. Puskas award is presented to those footballers who have scored the most outstanding goal of that year.
It is believed that Neymar has a net worth of $185 million. At PSG, Neymar makes a whooping €36.8 million a year. Neymar's transfer to PSG back in 2017 made him one of the most expensive players in the history of football.
Neymar has registered his name in the Guinness book of world records for two events. The first one being his transfer from Barcelona to PSG, and the second for scoring the fastest goal in Olympic history by a male footballer.
Neymar has been pictured as a lead character in a Brazilian comic book. The Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Souza created a comic that features Neymar as a child.
7. Not many faces make it to the cover of the famous Time magazine. However, Neymar is the only Brazilian athlete to be featured on the cover page of the magazine ever.
