Neymar’s Long-Awaited Return Gives Brazil Another Weapon

Rabat — By the time the 2026 World Cup started, Neymar wasn’t even in the conversation anymore, a calf problem had ruled him out of Brazil’s first two games and most people had already moved on. Vinícius is the guy now. That’s just how it is. No Brazil shirt, no international football, just a seemingly endless string of injuries and comebacks that never quite stuck. 

Then Wednesday happened.

Brazil were already cruising against Scotland, 3-0 up, Vinícius with two goals and the result long since settled, when Neymar’s number went up on the board. The stadium’s reaction was immediate. Not because Brazil needed him, but because of what the moment meant. Three years and nearly a thousand days of waiting, and here he was, back in that yellow shirt.

Afterwards he said he cried in the dressing room. “My heart’s racing, I’m really nervous… but happy. I’m proud, everything went well,” he told Globo TV.

 And when he was asked if he was fully fit, he didn’t hesitate: “100%, 100%.”

He also brought up Lewis Hamilton, not the most obvious reference, but it made sense coming from him. The idea that someone can be written off, can go through years of people saying their time has passed, and still come back and remind everyone what they’re capable of. That clearly meant something to Neymar during the darker stretches of his recovery.

There’s also a small piece of history in there, easy to miss amid everything else, he became only the second Brazilian after Pelé to wear the No. 10 shirt at four different World Cups. And that detail says a lot about how long he’s been doing this.

Brazil go into the knockouts as Group C winners, and Ancelotti now has a decision to make. Does Neymar start? Does he come off the bench again? That’s a conversation for another day. For now, after everything – the surgeries, the false dawns, the long months of nothing, he’s just happy to be back. And honestly, so are a lot of people watching.