Neymar was Santos’ hero on another night in the Brazilian League. The No 10 scored twice, his first brace since returning to Brazil, to lift his team out of the relegation zone.
Neymar scored two goals, one from a penalty kick, and shone in Santos’ 3-1 victory over Juventude on Monday in a Brazilian Championship match that was watched by special emissaries from the Brazilian national team coach, Italian Carlo Ancelotti.
The executive coordinator of the Brazilian national team, Rodrigo Caetano, and the technical manager of the ‘Selecao’, Juan, were tasked with observing Neymar’s performance at the Morumbis stadium in Sao Paulo, as he fights for a place in Brazil’s squad for the last two World Cup qualifiers in September.
Brazil, already qualified for the 2026 World Cup, will host Chile at the Maracana on September 4th and visit Bolivia five days later in El Alto in their final qualifying matches, which Ancelotti intends to use to begin building the team that will compete in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
The Brazilian national team’s physical trainer, Cristiano Nunes, also watched the match in which Neymar stood out and was applauded as the best player on the pitch, as one of Ancelotti’s concerns is precisely the striker’s fitness
The former Barcelona and PSG player did not waste the opportunity and, in one of his best games of the season, scored the goals that opened and secured the win for Santos, allowing Pele’s team to temporarily escape from the bottom four in the standings, which are punished with relegation.
Neymar, who showed good physical preparation after the injuries and discomfort that kept him off the field for much of the time since his return to Santos this year, completed the longest streak of games since returning to Brazil. But he also showed that he remains vulnerable to provocation and was shown a yellow card that all commentators had predicted since he began arguing with opposing players.
The Santos idol not only participated in all of his team’s offensive plays, including the three goals, but also helped, in a defensive position, to press when Juventude tried to play the ball out from the back.