After over two decades away, Neymar has sealed an emotional return to boyhood club Santos after spending the past 18 months with Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League.
Neymar said his goodbyes on Tuesday in a statement posted on social media, thanking all at the Saudi club for their support while also lamenting the fact that he wasn’t able to spend more time on the pitch during his 18-month stint.
Indeed, the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star struggled to make much of an impact in Saudi Arabia after joining Al Hilal in a $94 million (€90m) deal in the summer of 2023, with protracted injury issues limiting him to only seven appearances — the last of which being a brief cameo in November.
Neymar, 32, managed to score only a solitary goal for Al-Za’eem, which proved to be a largely inconsequential effort in a 3-0 win over Iranian side Nassaji Mazandaran in the group phase of the Asian Champions League Elite two months after he arrived.
It’s fair to suggest that his lone strike could feasibly rank as the most expensive goal of all time, given that it came to cost Al Hilal amost $200m — taking into account the $94m in transfer fees and another $100m or so in the substantial wages he received as part of his lucrative two-year contract.
And so, Neymar departs Gulf with three league starts to his name and only one competitive goal as he prepares to return to the club where it all started for him as a prodigious youth talent way back in 2003.
Here’s hoping his pesky hamstrings don’t let him down again.
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