Neymar

Very little is known about Neymar’s private life but he did have a child (a boy) with a woman named Carolina Dantas in 2011. According to reports, he wasn’t in a relationship with her. The name of the boy is David Lucca and he lives with Neymar.

Neymar da Silva Santos Junior was born on 5 February, 1992 in Mogi das Cruzes municipality in the city of Sao Paolo, Brazil. His father Neymar Santos Senior was a professional footballer and used to be his trainer. His mother’s name is Nadine da Silva.

During his childhood, Neymar used to be a well-known player of street football as well as futsal and that helped him hone his skills as far as fancy dribbling is concerned. In 2003, Neymar started representing the youth ranks of the team Portuguesa Santista and moved to the city of Sao Vicente.

Neymar joined the famous Brazilian club FC Santos in 2003 when he was only 11 years old and from then he went from strength to strength as a player. Neymar signed his first senior contract with FC Santos at the age of 17.

In 2009, Neymar made his senior team debut for Santos FC and over the next four years he became a prolific goal scorer for his team as he helped them to win the Libertadores Cup. He scored a total of 54 goals in 103 appearances for the club and throughout his time at the club he was being courted by the biggest clubs in Europe. In fact, he had been accepted by the Real Madrid academy at the age of 14 but he stayed back with FC Santos after the club offered him a better salary.

After being controversially overlooked by Brazil football team manager Dunga for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, Neymar made his international debut in a friendly later that year. The following year he netted twice for Brazil in an unsuccessful Copa America campaign and a year later he scored three goals in the Olympics to win a silver medal for Brazil.

Neymar was being courted by the biggest clubs in the world for the better part of his time in Santos FC and after a bitter tug of war between the Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona; Neymar signed for Barcelona in 2013 for a transfer fee of $76 million. The same year; Neymar scored 4 goals in the Confederations Cup as Brazil ended up winning the tournament, beating Spain in the final.

In the 2013 season, Neymar started playing for Barcelona and in his first season at the club he impressed everyone as he got goals in many of the important games; including most notably in the El Clasico against Real Madrid. The following season Neymar scored 39 goals across all competitions for Barcelona and the club went on to win the League, Cup and Champions League treble.

In 2014 FIFA World Cup, Neymar was Brazil’s main star as the team went in to the tournament in search of their 6th World Cup title. Neymar scored 4 times in the tournament but he was injured in the quarter final against Columbia and could not play in the semi final against Germany. Brazil was eliminated in the semi final round in a humiliating manner.

In 2011, Neymar won the ‘World Soccer Young Player of the Year’ award and in the same year he won the FIFA Puskas Award for scoring the best goal of the year.

Neymar has been a prodigious talent since he was a teenage star for Santos in Brazil but his greatest achievement as a footballer is the haul of 39 goals in the 2014-15 season at the end of which his club Barcelona won the treble. He scored 10 goals in the Champions League as well and ended up as the join top scorer.