Professional footballers are well known for having wild hairstyles, from David Beckham’s fauxhawk to whatever Paul Pogba decides to do with his hair today. Brazilians in particular have a history of outlandish haircuts, such as Ronaldo’s bizarre ’do at the 2002 World Cup. But this latest Neymar hair is really something.
Thank you @StatsBomb. Thank you, thank you. When it comes to statistics, dribbles, key passes and xG tell us some, but they don’t tell us enough — namely, (Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho on the wall) who is the filthiest of them all?
But thanks to StatsBomb.com, we can now discern which footballer earns his keep in a metaphorical pigsty, living amongst the grime and fetid squalor like Jack London in “The People of the Abyss.”
Neymar may be one of the best footballers in the world, but he’s not the best Teqball player. At least, he wasn’t the best Teqball player on this particular beach in Brazil.
With PSG and Ligue 1 on winter break, Neymar escaped France and returned to Brazil to spend time in the warmth of friends, family and sunny beaches. While chilling on the coast, Neymar played with Natalia Guitler in a game of Teqball, a game he’s quite familiar with.
Let’s be honest, divers ruin a lot of what’s great about soccer. Flops slow the game down, they win undeserved free kicks and generally just create more annoyance than enjoyment.
But sometimes, the diver’s acting is so unbelievably poor that the dive itself becomes a work of art. Usually, it’s some of the best players in the world that are doing the diving, which seems counterintuitive.
People like to blast Neymar for diving, and usually for good reason, as the Brazilian has a tendency to embellish as he’s often the target of physical play from defenders.
But sometimes he makes opponents take dives as well.
During Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League match with Red Star Belgrade, Neymar flummoxed keeper Milan Borjan with a feint before finishing with aplomb.
No one likes a flopper — it’s one of the few things on which all football fans can agree.
You might begrudgingly appreciate when a flopper earns your team a penalty kick or understand that the nature of the high-stakes game encourages players to do whatever it takes to gain an advantage, but no one actually likes a flopper.
So when we recently discovered something called the Floppotron, we were intrigued.