Neymar Returns to Training with Brazil but Remains Absent from Team

Neymar is back on the training pitch with Brazil. He is not, however, back in the team.

The country’s all‑time leading scorer, with 79 goals, rejoined full training at the World Cup in the United States this week after a right‑calf injury. Yet the 34-year-old has already watched one match from the sidelines and will watch another.

He missed Brazil’s opening 1-1 draw with Morocco and coach Carlo Ancelotti has again left him out of the squad for the second group game against Haiti on Friday. For a player who has defined Brazil’s last three World Cup campaigns, the sight of him in a bib rather than a shirt remains jarring.

The debate has spilled well beyond the dressing room. It even reached a hospital ceremony in Belo Horizonte, where 80-year-old president Lula was asked about the forward by a young boy.

“Neymar? He is not even playing!” Lula shot back, before twisting the knife with a joke: Neymar, he said, was “the first player to be called up to the national team who is working remotely.”

Lula has been in playful mood since the Morocco draw, even quipping midweek that he was considering signing Lionel Messi to play for Brazil. The humour underlines a serious point: for once, the national team is learning to live without its most famous No 10.

Neymar’s body has given Brazil little choice. Diagnosed in late May with a calf injury, the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star has managed only half of Santos’ matches this year amid a string of fitness problems. He has not played for his country since October 2023.

So when Ancelotti named him in the World Cup squad, there was surprise as well as relief. Brazilian media report that the coaching staff are determined not to rush him back and risk losing him for the business end of the tournament. The plan is caution, not nostalgia.

The first step came on Wednesday, when Neymar finally trained with his teammates for the first time at this World Cup base. Touches were sharp, movement measured. The temptation, as always with him, is to believe that one training session is enough.

Ancelotti is resisting that temptation. Haiti will come and go without the No 10. The focus is on what lies beyond the group, even as Brazil still have work to do to get there.

Before any knockout drama, there is one more date circled on the calendar: Scotland in Miami on June 24, Brazil’s final group-stage game. By then, the question may no longer be whether Neymar can train.

It will be whether Brazil dare to leave their record goalscorer on the bench once the stakes turn brutal.