Injuries have kept Neymar, Brazil<\/a>‘s all-time leading scorer, out of the national team since Oct. 2023.<\/p>\n He is in a race against the clock to regain his fitness in time to play at his fourth World Cup this summer.<\/p>\n “The World Cup is a competition of stars,” Mbapp\u00e9 <\/a>said<\/a> ahead of tonight’s World Cup warmup game against Brazil.<\/p>\n “All the stars are here, and in my book, Neymar is one of the biggest stars. I can’t imagine the World Cup without Neymar. But in the end, I can’t go against my former coach, [Carlo] Ancelotti. I have to respect his decision.”<\/p>\n Asked if this Brazil squad is that of Neymar or of his Real Madrid<\/a> teammate Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior, Mbapp\u00e9 said: “Vini now needs to take another step forward with the national team, but Neymar is Neymar. Neymar is a fantastic player.”<\/p>\n Vin\u00edcius, meanwhile, is rooting for Neymar to be fit<\/a> for the World Cup. “The pressure on Ney is normal,” he said. “I’m biased, Ney is one of my idols. He’s doing everything to be 100%, to return to the national team.<\/p>\n “Now, the decision rests with the coach. But we players always want to play with the best.”<\/p>\n – Neymar not giving up Brazil World Cup squad dream<\/a> Vin\u00edcius is expected to lead Brazil’s attack against France. Ancelotti, who will announce his World Cup squad on May 18, insisted Neymar still has a chance to make the cut provided the Santos<\/a> forward is 100% fit.<\/p>\n Former Brazil stars<\/a> have joined the debate<\/a> on whether Ancelotti should take Neymar even if the player is not at his best.<\/p>\n Asked about the ongoing debate on Neymar’ absence, Ancelotti said on Wednesday: “I observe everything, I listen to everything. But my role is to make decisions. It’s normal that everyone can have an opinion, because football isn’t an exact science.<\/p>\n “Everyone has their opinion, and I have to respect everyone’s opinion.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mar 26, 2026, 05:33 AM ET France star Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 cannot envision his former Paris Saint-Germain teammate Neymar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-561917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and Neymar were teammates at PSG.\u00a0Photo by FRANCK FIFE\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
– Neymar defends fitness ahead of World Cup: ‘Difficult to be me’<\/a>
– Brazil’s Neymar: I might retire at end of ‘important’ 2026<\/a><\/p>\n