Neymar got injury

CAN BRAZIL WIN WITHOUT NEYMAR

Leaving the Estádio Castelão, it was difficult
not to feel that Brazil, after the initial burst
of jubilation, may have lost their best chance
of winning this tournament for the sixth
time. The night before the match against
Colombia, the main strip of Fortaleza’s
beachfront was not a place where it was easy
to get much sleep. Now, there was a strange
lack of noise and celebration. A lot of the
locals had headed to Clínica São Carlos
instead, gathering outside the main gates to
go through their repertoire of songs in
support of Neymar, lying inside with a
fractured vertebra and his face covered in a
white blanket.
With a clearer head, the news is still a
grievous blow for Brazil, but the damage does
not necessarily have to be irreparable.
Neymar has scored four times so far. He has
had 18 shots at goal, created 13 other
chances for his team-mates and had 241
touches in the opposition half. On each
count, he is out alone as Brazil’s best
attacker. So, yes, it is easy to understand why
the immediate reaction was to suspect the
worse for Luiz Felipe Scolari’s team.
And yet, Brazil have not reached this point
just to raise a white flag because one player –
admittedly, more than just a normal player –
is injured. Willian is a £32m player with the
energy to fit in seamlessly. That, in turn,
could free up Oscar to play in the No 10 role
where he does his best work. Or maybe
Bernard could come in and we might see
why Scolari has described the Shakhtar
Donetsk player as having “joy in the legs”.
That still does not lessen the significance of
an injury that had the president, Dilma
Rousseff, sending her own message of
support to Neymar.
The 22-year-old has demonstrated in this
tournament that his superstar status is fully
warranted (just imagine Barça’s attack next
season if Neymar clicks and Luis Suárez is
playing ahead of Lionel Messi) and the really
sad thing about his absence is that it
deprives the World Cup of one of its real
showmen.