Neymar Jr looks ‘unrecognisable’ as Santos shares throwback photos on his birthday just days after return
Due to the termination of his contract with his previous Saudi Arabian club, the player was able to return to his boyhood club during the January transfer window.
After that, he went back to his home club of Santos in Brazil, where he began his career, before relocating to Europe and rising to prominence as one of the greatest players of his generation.
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Fans were taken aback by the old photos Santos posted of the forward on social media, confirming that it was Neymar who was celebrating his birthday.
One of the photos showed Neymar standing close to a statue of Pele, while another showed him as a child wearing a Santos uniform and another of him balancing a football on his foot.
Numerous additional images of the celebrity were also circulated, including both his most recent renders and older pictures taken at Santos. In one picture, he was shown cradling a football while wearing a Santos uniform as a child.
In order to complete the deal and make a spectacular comeback, the forward, who was making £130 million year with Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia, traveled home on Friday.
At the beginning of his career, Neymar enthralled football fans at Santos, where he emerged as the next big thing.
He left Santos in 2013 to seek a career at Barcelona after helping lead the team to a Copa Libertadores championship in 2011, and he expressed his hope to return there someday during the summer.
After Al-Hilal ended his contract, the day has finally come. The 33-year-old has only played seven games for the team since signing in August 2023 because of an ACL injury, scoring one goal.
In order to revitalize his career and guarantee a spot in Brazil’s squad for the 2026 World Cup, he committed to a six-month contract with Santos. Santos confirmed the news on social media with a 79-second video.
Pele, Zito, Coutinho, Carlos Alberto, and many other Brazilian legends have adorned the Vila Belmiro down the years, and in their 1960s heyday they regularly trounced elite European opposition on global tours.
They had struggled in recent years, losing to the second division in 2023, but they recovered last year to win Serie B at the first attempt.
Neymar has also recently suffered, as evidenced by his disastrous summer 2023 departure from PSG.
Even though he is Brazil’s all-time leading scorer, his career has been marred by injuries of various severity and has not been as successful as it was when he was at Barcelona.
Fitness issues were as bad as they were during his terrible time in Saudi Arabia. The Brazilian legend only played 428 minutes over the course of 18 months due to an ACL injury sustained early in his £77.6 million move to Al-Hilal.