Ancelotti’s World Cup gamble on Neymar shows Brazil still desperate for own Messi | Jonathan Wilson

W hen Neymar was 18, he made his debut for Brazil as part of the rejuvenation of the national squad after the disappointment of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. At the time, Lionel Messi was 23, obviously a star, and Brazil had to have their equivalent. Neymar has been trying to escape the Argentinian’s shadow ever since. Even the news that Carlo Ancelotti has included Neymar in his squad for the forthcoming World Cup feels like a desperate attempt to create the sort of narrative Messi enjoyed at the last finals : a last dance long after the body had begun to fade. Messi then was 35; Neymar now is 34. But there are not many other similarities between the cases. Right from the start the sense was Brazil needed a Messi of their own and that created a culture of dependency that was helpful to nobody. Neymar is a player who delights some and frustrates others, a vessel into which competing factions pour their narrative; it’s easy for the individual to be lost. There is an overlooked poignancy to Neymar’s story; a potential great who was never quite allowed to be himself, whose substance never quite matched the image. After Brazil’s defeat by Belgium in their 2018 World Cup quarter-finals, Neymar stood alone beside the team bus in the stadium car park in Kazan, silhouetted against a vast LED screen, head bowed, shoulders bent under the weight of expectation. He was just 26 but even then it felt as if his best chance of winning a World Cup was gone. …