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Neymar, record breaker: one of football’s true greats
Neymar joined Saudi Pro League club Al Hilal in August in a €90million ($96m) deal from Paris Saint-Germain, but the former Barcelona star has only featured in five games because he was struggling with muscle injuries.
Neymar has seen the last three seasons disrupted by injury. The forward was sidelined for three months during the 2021-22 campaign with an ankle injury, before another ankle injury ruled him out of two Brazil matches at the 2022 World Cup. He returned to action for PSG before sustaining ligament damage on the same ankle in February and subsequently undergoing surgery, forcing him to miss the final four months of the season.
Neymar missed the 2019 version of the Copa America with an ankle injury sustained on the eve of the tournament, which Brazil won as hosts.
The forward won the Confederations Cup title with Brazil in 2013 and the Olympics three years later, but he has yet to taste success at either the World Cup or Copa America with his nation.
Neymar suffered injury heartbreak at the 2014 World Cup as an injury sustained in the quarter-final win over Colombia forced him out of the nation’s 7-1 defeat to Germany in the last four stage.
Neymar scored a magnificent goal in Brazil’s World Cup last eight tie against Croatia in December last year but his side lost the penalty shootout while in 2021, Brazil were edged out by Argentina in the final of the Copa America.
Brazil have been drawn in Group D of next year’s Copa America alongside Colombia, Paraguay, and the winner of a play-off between Costa Rica and Honduras.
This is the second time the tournament will be hosted in the U.S., after its centenary edition in 2016, as six teams from Concacaf compete with ten South American nations.
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Neymar ACL knee injury: The prognosis – and why ‘neurophysiological insults’ matter
(Guillermo Legaria/Getty Images)
Source link : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5151236/2023/12/20/neymar-knee-injury-copa-america-brazil/
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Publish date : 2023-12-19 03:00:00
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