After almost 12 years playing for two of the best teams in Europe and a brief stop in Saudi Arabia, Neymar is back playing professional football in his native Brazil.
The former Superstar of Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain was put as a substitute at the beginning of the second half for his Santos Childhood Club in his Paulista Championship match against Botafogo SP on Wednesday at Estadio Vila Belmiro.
Santos led the 1-0 game when Neymar went out to the field, but awarded a goal in the second half, and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
“I love Santos. I have no words to describe what I felt tonight when I step on this release again,” Neymar said after the game.
The Brazilian star, who was named the best player in the game, acknowledged that he is not yet in maximum physical condition, but said he took positive feelings of his first game in more than three months.
“I need minutes, games. I'm not 100 percent. I didn't expect to run and haggle so much tonight. I think I'll feel better in four or five games,” he added.
Neymar, who turned 33 on Wednesday, sealed the transfer to Santos on January 31, signing a six -month agreement that the club said it hopes to extend at least through the 2026 World Cup.
He won six titles during his time in Santos, located in a city in front of the front of the beach on the outskirts of São Paulo, including a trophy of the Copa Libertadores in 2011.
Neymar, once acclaimed as one of the best players in the world, left Santos for Barcelona in 2013 and then became the most expensive transfer in the history of the game when he moved to PSG for € 222 million (then $ 262 million) In 2017.
He signed for Al-Hilal in the Saudi Professor League in the summer of 2023, but suffered an ACL lesion several months after the movement while playing for Brazil in a World Cup qualifier.
Despite Neymar's injury, Al-Hilal still managed to win the Saudi League last season. The Brazilian contract had to expire after the FIFA Club World Cup this year, which will be played between June 15 and July 13 in the United States.
After the Hilal refused to include it in the team's squadrons list for the second half of the SPL season, and manager Jorge Jesús said there was no longer a place for him with the team, the reports of a return to Santos They started picking up Steam. Before his return.
According to reports, Neymar's salary with Al Hilal was one of the greatest world football.
