A bad time can sometimes be a good omen.

It is one of the maxims that Brazilians cling to when things aren’t going well for their national team, a little amulet for the soul. It is a reminder that, for all the benefits of stability and sensible planning, success is just as often conjured from chaos.

You do not have to look beyond Brazil’s World Cup successes for supporting evidence. In 1970, coach Joao Saldanha was sacked shortly before the tournament and a nation held its breath over the fitness of striker Tostao. In 1994, Brazil needed two late goals against Uruguay to scrape a qualification spot at the last.

Then there was the run-up to the 2002 World Cup, which has been cited with increasing frequency — and, yes, starry-eyed hope — in recent months. The comparisons with the current moment are unavoidable.

Brazil went through four coaches during that cycle; they are on their fourth of this one. In 1993, they limped out of the Copa America at the quarter-final stage; the 2024 edition followed the same pattern. They reached the 2002 World Cup by the skin of their teeth; things were only slightly less fraught this time out.

For the true believers, this is already pretty convincing stuff. Recent weeks, though, have brought another element into the mix.

After Brazil qualified for the 2002 tournament, the media focus shifted to a human-scale story. It centred on Romario, the bad-boy idol of the Brazilian public, and his attempt to drag himself to one last World Cup. There was a prolonged media campaign in his favour — even the country’s president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, weighed in. When Luiz Felipe Scolari, the coach, ignored the calls to include Romario in his squad, he was confronted by an angry mob in Rio de Janeiro. Romario himself called a press conference and burst into tears. Two months later, Brazil beat Germany to lift their fifth World Cup.

You will know where this is going by now, and yes, it is high time we bring him in, the 2026 brat-prince, the man whose form, fitness, psychological state and choice of haircut are all going to be folded into one rolling mega-narrative in the next six months.

Welcome to Neymar: the referendum. You’ll find a fire-retardant vest underneath your seat.

For those who have taken leave of the Neymarverse in the past year or two, here is a quick summary of where we are. Neymar left Paris Saint-Germain for Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal in August 2023, suffered a serious knee injury two months later and did not play for them again. In January, he returned to Brazil, signing for boyhood club Santos.

Neymar helped Santos avoid relegation (Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images)

He made 29 appearances in the 2025 Brazilian season. He scored 11 goals and set up four more. He missed 17 matches through injury. He will turn 34 in February.

These are not, on the face of it, encouraging numbers. (Romario, by point of contrast, was 36 but scored 40 times for Vasco in 2001, on top of 66 the previous season.) Nor does drilling into them do him many favours. Six of those 15 goal contributions came in low-wattage group matches in the Sao Paulo state championship, for example.

This is not to say there have not been moments of grace, little flashes of the old Neymar. He won a penalty with a glorious piece of skill against Agua Santa in February and scored directly from a corner a couple of weeks later. In the final rounds of the Campeonato Brasileiro, the country’s top flight, he dragged Santos away from the relegation battle almost single-handedly, despite nursing a meniscus problem.

Still, there have undoubtedly been more dips than peaks. Frequent hamstring issues disrupted his momentum — and his team’s. Even when fit enough to start, he looked like a guy who had been out for over a year. That is an understandable consequence of that bad knee injury, but also of a general slowing down, the bendy-legged glory years fading into the haze of memory.

This being Neymar, there were also fallouts and psychodramas. He taunted opposition fans during a 3-0 loss against Mirassol. He spent the 3-2 defeat against Flamengo in November moaning at team-mates and the referee, then stormed down the tunnel, past coach Juan Pablo Vojvoda, after being substituted.

“He is a big name but setting the right example is important,” former Brazil coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo said after that display of petulance. “Football is a collective game. True leaders push their teams forward with the right attitude.”

Neymar will have knee surgery now that the Brazilian season has finished (Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images)

Luxemburgo’s view chimed with that of another former Selecao manager, Emerson Leao. “He’s not an example to anyone,” Leao told CNN Brasil earlier in the season. “I don’t see Neymar solving our problems. We’ve moved past him.”

Leao was talking about the Brazil national team. Plenty in Brazil would agree with him. What is more interesting is how many would not.

You might assume, based on his injury record and age, that we’re firmly into the post-Neymar era. His last appearance for Brazil was in October 2023, and 28 players have made their senior international debuts since then. There has been a changing of the guard.

Neymar, though, like Romario before him, is a footballer Brazil just can’t quit. Carlo Ancelotti has been asked about him in just about every press conference he has held since becoming the national team coach. This week, news that Neymar will have surgery on his troublesome meniscus has led to countless stories about his race to be fit for next summer.

The great and the good of the Brazilian game, meanwhile, still talk about him in reverential tones.

“Brazil only have a chance of winning the World Cup if he’s there,” Romario said in an interview on SporTV in September.

Ronaldo, the former Brazil striker, was similarly effusive. “He’s a decisive player for the national team,” he said at a recent event. “We don’t have another player like him.”

Ancelotti does not lack options in the final third. Vinicius Junior, Raphinha, Rodrygo, Estevao, Matheus Cunha, Joao Pedro, Luiz Henrique, Richarlison and Gabriel Martinelli are all vying for places in his World Cup squad. Ronaldo, though, is surely correct: Neymar is — always has been — different. No player has been as consistently decisive for Brazil in the past 15 years. No player can match his creativity — or, frankly, his star power. If he can get back to his best, he would take some leaving out.

That ‘if’, though, contains a lot of uncertainty. It is one thing to ask whether Neymar can stop getting injured, whether he can get a solid run of games going. It is also valid to ask what his top level looks like. The ceiling had already lowered by 2023. Where might it be in 2026?

Ancelotti has been consistent. He has repeatedly said he will only pick fully fit players. And while he has also made a point of praising Neymar, there was just a hint of exasperation in his answer when the question was put to him for the millionth time after the World Cup draw at the start of the month.

“If Neymar deserves to be there, if he’s fit and performing better than others, he will play at the World Cup,” Ancelotti said. “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

The door is unlocked, then, but Neymar will have to open it himself. All of which leads us back to Romario and the only real certainty in this whole thing: the next six months will be worth watching, one way or another.