Brazil have been installed as one of the favourites for next year’s World Cup but if they are to make good on that billing they need their star man Neymar to play his part in the collective game-plan and not produce the sort of individualistic display that he offered up in their 2-0 win over Ecuador on Thursday.
Previous coach Dunga was happy to lean on Neymar’s talent. He constructed a conservative team that relied on set-piece routines and moments of magic from his number 10. It was an unsuccessful approach and one that quite often produced a frustrated Neymar, prone to involving himself in petty scuffles.
Tite arrived with different ideas. One of Brazil’s most forward-thinking coaches, he wanted his side to play football that was both attractive and effective, balanced yet beautiful. That harmony was quickly achieved, leading to the run of nine consecutive victories that has already booked Brazil their place at Russia 2018.
One of the keys to Tite’s success has been in creating a profitable collective context in which Neymar’s key strengths - his incisive, slalom-like dribbling and ability to form a panoptic picture of play at pace - can be best utilised.
With Marcelo outside of him or providing back up behind, Philippe Coutinho drifting to the centre from the right to provide a link point infield, Paulinho making off-ball runs forward to unbalance the opposition defence and a mobile central striker pulling away to find space wide of the central defenders, Neymar regularly finds himself overflowing in options.
A newly mature Neymar had seemed to emerge: one capable of using his obvious talent to the benefit of the team. A version sculpted at Barcelona, where the collective has traditionally been of primary importance, and one that Brazil hope will not give way to the more individually minded player he may well have the license to become at his new club Paris Saint-Germain.
It was that latter version of Neymar that was in evidence against Ecuador. He got involved in areas of the pitch in which others should have been trusted and too often tried to make things happen himself on the dribble instead of connecting with teammates. Ecuador were able to accumulate bodies around him and cut off his dribbling lanes. His earlier petulance returned in the form of a fairly innocuous yet nevertheless unnecessary first-half booking.
It was performance that felt like a regression - hopefully a temporary one. Not only was he less effective individually, he also lowered the performance level of the team. As Breiller Pires noted in a column for El Pais the following day: “Brazil are weakened whenever Neymar confuses protagonism with individualism.”
Performances like that may fly for PSG against underpowered domestic opponents but they are unlikely to be sufficient to take them further than they’ve been previously in the Champions League and will certainly not lead Brazil to glory in Russia next year.
In an increasingly athletic game played in ever-reducing spaces, it is the collective than usually triumphs over the individual. Top-quality players can make the difference but they can no longer single-handedly drag teams to success. And that is a point Neymar needs to show that he understands with a more collaborative performance away to Colombia on Tuesday.
