Philippe Coutinho’s move from Liverpool to Barcelona took him to the next level of stardom on the global stage. His rise through the ranks at Anfield, from raw talent to star player, played a big part in the increase in his profile, but the move to Catalonia propelled him to global brand status, and his stock will only continue to rise.
Arriving on Merseyside in January 2013, he was a prodigious talent whose move to Europe hadn’t yet worked out at planned. A transfer from Rio De Janeiro based side Vasco da Gama to Internazionale at the age of 18 didn’t go as smoothly as planned. It wasn’t until a loan spell at Espanyol in 2012, under the management of Mauricio Pochettino, that Coutinho began to show flashes of his Brazilian brilliance.
Inter still weren’t convinced, and decided to accept Liverpool’s offer of £8.5 million. It would turn out to be a bargain.
Coutinho’s improvement in Liverpool began to alert those in charge of the Brazilian national team, and after their disastrous semi-final defeat in their 2014 World Cup, the attacking midfielder was one of the players called up to a refreshed side which looked to put the 7-1 behind them.
He’d had previous success with Brazil at youth level, winning the 2009 South American Under-17 Championship, and the 2011 U20 World Cup, but it was with Brazil’s under-16s in 2008 when he would first meet Neymar.
"We were introduced on day three, when we travelled with the under-16s," Coutinho said at the time.
"It was kind of instinctive. Because of our style of play, which is similar, we started to connect very well. We had lots of fun."
Neymar was already reasonably well known on a global scale while still playing in Brazil, thanks to YouTube videos which would pop up after each moment of mesmerising skill, joyfull attacking play, or outstanding goal. The world had craved a new Brazilian superstar after a relatively barren spell, and Neymar was going to be it.
After that meeting in 2008, Neymar and Coutinho were reunited in a Brazil squad which faced Argentina in a friendly held in Qatar in November 2010. Neymar started the game, but Coutinho remained on the bench.
Neymar had made his senior debut in August of that year, 17 months after making his first appearance for Santos in March 2009. It was a similar story for Coutinho, who made his first Brazil appearance in October 2010, having made his Vasco debut in June 2009.
The trajectory was similar in those early stages, but while Coutinho jumped at the chance to move to Europe at the first opportunity, Neymar, four months his junior, remained at Santos for five seasons until making the big move to Barcelona in 2013.
While Coutinho was struggling at Inter, back at Santos Neymar was putting on a show for the new generation of fans watching their football on YouTube. Barcelona had a global brand on their hands from the moment he arrived at the Camp Nou, and his stature only increased by playing alongside Lionel Messi, and later Luis Suarez, forming one of the most feared attacking trios ever seen — dubbed MSN.
But Neymar wanted more, and wanted, more specifically, the Ballon d’Or. But his quest for this individual gong would be the start of something of a backlash, and see his global reputation take a hit.
Neymar went from the team player who also had a platform to recreate his Santos brilliance, to a Paris primadonna. To escape from the shadow of Messi and Suarez, he moved to Paris Saint-Germain in a £198m world record transfer. He hoped this would take him to the top of the Ballon d’Or list as well as that for highest transfer fee paid.
But this changed his game, and Neymar became a one man show in a team sport, trying to do everything himself. He felt the need to carry PSG on his own, just as he had with Brazil in 2014.
Despite his immense talent he didn’t always succeed in his role as the lone star. These setbacks were usually met by appeals to referees, vain attempts to win fouls, or unsavoury theatrics following minimal contact.
Granted, some of this is born of the rough treatment he’s received, most notably in the 2014 World Cup quarter final against Colombia when a challenge from Juan Zuniga left him with a broken vertebra. It is his way of protecting himself, but it’s now gone too far and is ineffective either for protection, or to con referees or opponents. He is a worse player because of it and it may affect his quest for the biggest prizes in football, individual or otherwise.
Coutinho, meanwhile, has grown into a determined creative midfielder and achieved a dream move to Barcelona. They paid Liverpool an initial £105m for his services shortly after Neymar’s departure for France. The move catapulted the playmaker into the limelight, and he’s since become an indispensable part of Tite’s Brazil setup.
"I think that Coutinho is a player who is on the same level as Neymar, he has a massive influence on our game and in his teams," said Brazil stalwart Dani Alves earlier this year.
"When he was in Liverpool and now in Barca, he has improved a lot and learned to read the game better, to make the right decisions."
He’s no longer the player shunted out to the right for Brazil, but is now their modern midfielder, playing the free-eight role which has become popular in recent times -- somewhere between the traditional roles of No. 8 and a No. 10.
The 2018 World Cup has seen the changing of the guard when it comes to Brazil’s best player. Coutinho, not Neymar, was the standout player for Tite’s side, and it is he who will be up for an individual award come the end of the tournament thanks to his trademark long-distance strike against Switzerland.
Coutinho is happy to let his individual skills contribute to the aims of the team, and while Neymar looks more of a team player for Brazil than he does for PSG, his histrionics in Russia have turned a lot of his admirers onto other players such as Coutinho, and France’s Kylian Mbappe.
If 19-year-old Mbappe builds on his first World Cup experience, then Neymar might not even be the best player at PSG next season, but for Brazil there is no doubt that he has now been overtaken by his old mate, Coutinho.
