The 26 are named. The doubts are gone. And in a World Cup with no clear favourites, Brazil just handed themselves a knockout-round weapon nobody else has.
Today at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Carlo Ancelotti read out the 26 names that will wear the Seleção shirt this summer. A crowd had gathered outside the venue chanting “Ole, ole, ole, ola, Neymar” for nearly an hour before the announcement. The most debated name on the list was Neymar’s. He made it.
The road back from hell
The 34-year-old hasn’t worn the yellow shirt since 18 October 2023. That was the day Neymar tore his ACL against Uruguay, and the night his Brazil career looked like it might be finished. Two and a half years of his career disappeared into rehab rooms and recovery timelines. A failed spell at Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia made it worse. Just seven appearances in almost 18 months.
Then Santos. The boyhood club. The badge he wore as a teenager before Europe came calling. The crowd that watched him become Neymar before he was Neymar.
Six goals and four assists later, he was back in the conversation. Ancelotti had been honest throughout. Only players at 100% physical capacity would be in the roster. Neymar wasn’t called up for the March friendlies. The doubts were real. Then Estêvão’s hamstring went, the attacking depth shifted, and Neymar’s Santos numbers became impossible to ignore.
Ancelotti made the call.
Why this was the right call
Strip out the noise. Strip out the petition-shaped fan campaigns and the social media meltdowns and the political pressure from a country that needed to feel involved in the decision. Look at the squad sheet alone.
Brazil’s attack is full of brilliance. Vinicius Júnior coming off a Real Madrid season. Raphinha after a treble-winning year at Barcelona. Endrick from his Lyon loan. Martinelli, Cunha, Igor Thiago, Rayan. All exciting. All technically gifted. Almost none of them have ever played a World Cup knockout game.
Knockout football is a different sport. The pitch shrinks. The cameras zoom in. The margin between going home and going through is a single moment of clarity from a player who has stood in the tunnel before, with a nation watching, and not blinked.
Neymar has stood in that tunnel three times. He’s the only player in this squad who knows what the back nine of a World Cup actually does to a young footballer’s nervous system. 79 goals in 128 caps isn’t sentimentality. It’s a record. And the body of work that went with it includes the kind of pressure games that nobody on this squad has lived through yet.
Ancelotti didn’t pick him because the streets demanded it. He picked him because the dressing room needed someone who has actually been there.
The chaos that didn’t happen
That said, the streets were paying attention.
There is no other footballer in the world whose absence from a World Cup squad would have caused what Neymar’s would have caused in Brazil. The face on the murals. The number 10 on the kids’ shirts. The man who surpassed Pelé as Brazil’s all-time leading scorer in 2023. Tell that country he’s not on the plane and you start a civil war in the press, in the bars, in every WhatsApp group from Manaus to Porto Alegre.
Brazil avoided that war. Not because Ancelotti caved. Because the football case happened to align with the political one. Sometimes the right answer is the popular one. This was one of those times.
Three World Cups in the rearview
This will be Neymar’s fourth tournament. He was 22 in 2014 when Brazil hosted the World Cup and he carried the team on his back to the semi-finals. A broken vertebra against Colombia ended his tournament before the Germany game. That game became the 7-1. Brazil have never recovered from it, not really.
2018 in Russia, the diving memes followed him everywhere but he scored twice and Belgium dumped Brazil out in the quarter-finals.
2022 in Qatar, he scored against Croatia in the quarter-final to take it to extra time. Brazil lost on penalties. He didn’t take one.
Three tournaments. Three exits before a final he was meant to deliver. A trophy cabinet that includes Olympic gold and a Copa América but not the one his country has been chasing since 2002.
He’s now 34. The shirt fits differently.
The squad around him
Alisson and Ederson in goal. Marquinhos and Gabriel Magalhães at the back. Casemiro and Bruno Guimarães holding the middle. Endrick named after his loan spell at Lyon, Vinicius Júnior leading the attack, Raphinha on the other wing, Cunha at Manchester United form, Martinelli at Arsenal, Igor Thiago at Brentford, Bournemouth’s Rayan getting his moment.
The young attackers need an old head who knows what a World Cup quarter-final actually feels like at the 78th minute. Neymar is now that head. Whether he plays 90 minutes or 20, whether he starts or comes off the bench, his job description has changed. He isn’t being asked to carry Brazil anymore. He’s being asked to unlock a knockout game when nobody else can.
That’s a job he’s qualified for. Brazil open against Morocco on 13 June, then Haiti on 20 June and Scotland on 24 June in Group C. The serious stuff starts after that.
A tournament with no favourites
Here’s the part most pundits get wrong.
This World Cup is wide open. There is no team you can confidently put a fiver on to lift the trophy. France look solid on paper but every team always does at this stage. Argentina have Messi at 38 and Scaloni’s tactical wizardry but no clear successor up front. Spain are technical but inconsistent. England keep showing up and keep finding new ways to lose. Germany are rebuilding. The Netherlands are dangerous but not feared. Portugal have Ronaldo for one last ride. Belgium are no longer a golden generation. Morocco showed in 2022 they belong at the top table.
This is a tournament that won’t be decided by who has the most talent. The team that lifts the trophy will be the team that unifies the quickest, parks the egos at the door, and finds a way to play with hunger when the legs start to go in extra time. Team spirit decides this World Cup. Whichever group of players actually wants to die for each other on the pitch is the one that gets to wear the medals.
Brazil have the talent. Whether they have the unity is the question Ancelotti was hired to answer.
The prince and the crown
Here’s the part that hurts to write.
Brazil have produced one of every kind of footballing king. Pelé. Garrincha. Romário. Ronaldo Nazário. Ronaldinho. Each one of them lifted a World Cup or wore a crown that came with the trophy. Brazil have not produced their next one. Not yet.
The closest they have is Neymar.
He has carried the title of prince for more than a decade. The boy with the haircut at Santos who became the man who broke Pelé’s record. The face on the billboards. The reason a generation of Brazilian kids pick number 10. The footballer the country has loved, fought over, lost patience with, and ultimately refused to write off, even when he wrote himself off twice over.
A prince becomes a king the moment he lifts a World Cup. Not before.
Neymar has three previous shots that ended in tears, a broken back, and a penalty he didn’t take. This one is his last. Body permitting. Knee permitting. Defenders permitting. Team spirit permitting.
Will the prince finally become the king?
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