In Brazil,hope has a new name

The phrase is difficult to translate directly into English. Generally,it has to do with gambling and a man’s soul. It has to do with being brash and bold and brave. It has to do with fortitude and,perhaps more than anything else,an abiding belief in a singular path.

Sitting in a hotel lounge 25 stories above Columbus Circle in Manhattan last month,the star’s father,Neymar Sr.,looked out over Central Park and tried his best to explain it. Across the Hudson River,his son was with the Brazilian national team,preparing for a sold-out exhibition match against Argentina and,beyond that,for the Olympics,where he will be the most dynamic player in the competition. At the London Games,with the world’s spotlight squarely on him,Neymar Jr. will seek to earn his country a gold medal,the one major soccer trophy it has never won.

“He is living it right now,” Neymar Sr. said. “That saying we talk about — he is doing it.” But that was not enough. So Neymar Sr. tried again,through a translator,to summarize the essence of the phrase. His son’s success,he continued,has always been based on risk. On finding the right mix of fast and slow,of possibility and caution.

At 20 years old,Neymar is already the highest-paid soccer player in Brazil. He is the face (and future) of soccer’s South American mecca. He is,in the words of no less than perhaps the greatest player in history,a technical marvel,a wizard with magical feet. But through it all,his father said,this one Brazilian saying has guided him,especially now as the latest question — when will Neymar go to Europe for good? — is asked over and over.

Finally,Neymar Sr. laughed as he settled on the best way to present the idiom. He sat up straight and explained that in life there are,really,only two choices: “A man can either go through life wearing velvet pants,” he said grinning,“or he can go through life with his bare rear end hanging out in the open air.”

A Magician With the Ball

In 1992 Neymar Sr. was playing in Mogi das Cruzes,a factory city about 25 miles east of São Paulo,when his son was born. Initially,he remained in Mogi,but after several years,as it became clear his playing career was ending,he moved his family — his wife,Nadine,as well as an infant daughter and Neymar Jr. — back to his hometown,São Vicente.

There,in the coastal city where he grew up,Neymar Sr. moved in with his parents. “We weren’t starting at zero — we were starting at minus-five,” Neymar Sr. said,acknowledging it would have been easy simply to stay put. Live in that modest house,raise his children with his parents around,aspire to little more than he had. “We could have done that,” he said.

Instead,he started his chase for the velvet pants. Neymar Sr. began working three jobs simultaneously. He was a car mechanic. He was a bricklayer. He was an employee for the city. His wife worked too,as a cook at a child-care center.

The early mornings and late nights lasted about four years,Neymar Sr. said,and in the middle of that span — when Neymar Jr. was 7 — a recruiter for a local indoor soccer team came to see them. The family did not know it,but that was the beginning. Neymar Sr. did not get to see his son play much because he was always working,but he had heard the talk. Even at 5 and 6,Neymar was pushing to play with older boys in street games.

It did not matter that the goals were sandals and the ball was sometimes little more than a rock. “I just wanted to play,” Neymar said.

Between street games and salon football,or futsal,as it is sometimes known,Neymar quickly developed a preternatural touch with the ball. Style is prized among South American players,and controlling the ball artistically is such a desired skill that there is a television show — known as “Street Style” — dedicated to identifying the best juggler.

He can flick it,roll it,slide it and cradle it. He can make it disappear. In an exhibition against the United States this year,Neymar took the ball to the near side and danced with it toward the endline. As the crowd at FedEx Field in Landover,Md.,exhaled a collective “oooh,” he slipped toward the goal and slid a perfect pass at the feet of a teammate,Pato.

That Pato’s shot rebounded off the post almost did not matter. For that moment,Neymar was a boy again,juggling in the streets with his friends shouting at him to keep the ball in the air longer and kick it over his head once more.

There were never enough games to satisfy Neymar,and by the time he was 11,teams throughout Brazil coveted him.

His father took over full-time care of Neymar’s career at that point,handling the crush of scouts and club representatives who came to try and sign him. One of them was the Brazilian legend Zito,who scored 57 goals with Santos F.C. and won two World Cups with the national team. That Neymar rooted for Santos made the connection even sweeter.

Neymar ultimately joined Santos’s youth team,but at 14 he was offered the chance to play for Real Madrid,a Spanish power and one of Europe’s most famous clubs. Brazilian stars like Ronaldo and Robinho played for Madrid,and Neymar traveled there with his family. The allure of Europe was powerful. “I have always dreamed of playing there,” Neymar said,and he could have stayed,could have made his life there. No one in Brazil would have begrudged him using that opening as the start to a long career playing in a more visible league like those in Spain or England or Italy. But Neymar Sr. said the family ignored the popular sentiment.

“We’re from a humble family,and in a humble family there is always the question of cultural values,” he said. So Neymar did not rise up through the ranks at Madrid. And he did not receive the exposure guaranteed to South American prodigies who opt to play in Europe like,say,the Argentine Lionel Messi,to whom Neymar is so often compared. Instead,he returned home. He rejoined Santos and re-entered a life that quickly developed into something he never could have imagined.

A Life Closely Examined

Neymar’s fame,particularly at home,is difficult to quantify. He returned to Santos at 14 and made a first-team impact at 17,scoring 14 goals that season. At 18,he scored 42 goals in 60 games and led Santos to the championship of the Campeonato Paulista,the top league in the country. It was not long before he could barely go out of the house. Neymar likes food — Italian,Japanese and,of course,rice and beans,he said — but going to restaurants became troublesome.

There are safety issues as well. Once,after Santos lost a match,6-2,the fans were so angry that they threw eggs at the players. The public examination of Neymar may never have been higher than in 2011,when he became a father at 19. His father had cautioned him against the dangers of what he called the “chemical and the physical,” but while Neymar had avoided issues with alcohol or drugs,the uproar over his baby out of wedlock was brutal.

Lately,the focus on Neymar has become almost exclusively about where he plays. Santos has turned down advances from several English clubs,including Chelsea,attempting to take Neymar to Europe.

This is not new. But Neymar Sr. said the family was sticking to its plan. “It was hard to stay in Brazil,” he said. “But we are achieving,we are doing this,at least until he matures. Then we will go out and show the world.”

A Sense of Purpose and Place

At times,Neymar Sr. sounds a bit like Tiger Woods’s father,Earl,when he talks about his son. Earl Woods was known for his (often bombastic) pronouncements of Tiger’s importance and impact,perhaps most notably when he suggested Tiger would have more influence on the world than Jesus Christ. Neymar Sr. is more measured — he at least says his son is still developing — but preaches,all the same,about how Neymar will help change the style of soccer around the world.

Now,Neymar is compared to Messi. Some,like Messi’s former teammate Thierry Henry,see no comparison. “I think Neymar is amazing; I think Messi is more than amazing,” Henry said. But there are people like Pelé,perhaps the greatest ever to play,who said he believed Neymar was more technically advanced than Messi.

Neymar is diplomatic,saying,“I have a long way to go to be compared to him for real.” If he and his father are to be believed,Neymar will leave London after the Olympics and return to Brazil,as he intends to honor his contract with Santos,which runs through 2014. It is a risk,of course. Neymar could get hurt,could lose his form.

He could be surpassed by another wunderkind who can do even more with the ball. And how will the family feel if Neymar never plays on his sport’s biggest stages?

Father and son say they do not care. These are the chances they have taken,and these are the choices they have made. This is their path. “Everyone thinks money is everything,but it isn’t,” Neymar Sr. said,sipping his coffee. “We’ve lived on very little.” He gestured out the window. “Maybe the boldness,the daring of having said ‘no,’ signifies something to people everywhere. Maybe it says something important. Doesn’t it?” Neymar Sr. laughed then,because he knew. Of course it did. The chase for velvet pants never ends.