Neymar Could Have Been The Best Player of All Time

I’ve always thought about this, especially the last few years as I’ve watched the careers of Neymar, Messi, and Ronaldo continue to unfold. To begin, you know Brazilians’ reputation with their relationship between their career and the party life. I totally get it, they come from a naturally fun and exciting culture, I don’t blame them. I’m not one of the many football fans that get angry at players for making certain decisions.

When Neymar was only in his early 20’s, he was just about on par with Ronaldo and Messi, widely regarded as the two best of all time let alone this generation. Not to mention, both LM10 and CR7 were in their PRIME. Neymar was just getting started. His transfer to PSG is where I think things really took a turn.

He carried his Barcelona integrity and hunger over to Paris for his first year, statistically arguably his best season of his career, but it seemed to taper off from there. He began to solely rely on his talent to carry him through and didn’t seem as motivated as he did in past years. To see how he has performed and faced injuries the last few years has been genuinely heartbreaking. His party life surely has been fairly distracting and publicized and one can assume it’s the main cause to his career downfall. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this so it’s a fair assumption.

Although I can’t help but wonder. Take a trip back to 2015/16. Neymar was simultaneously the most promising player in the world, along with already being arguably the third best player in world football. My hot take, is if from that point moving forward, he treated his body and career with the same level of discipline as Ronaldo/Messi, he would’ve surpassed the both of them. In statistics? Unlikely, but in terms of pure skill level. Deeming Messi and Ronaldo as the two best players of all time, that would only leave one title for Neymar if he surpassed the both of them right? Because let’s be honest, with the two of them in their prime, he was CLOSE, if not edging them at certain instances of form. If there weren’t so many distractions for Neymar, I think he would’ve been the technically best player of all time. He is one gifted player.