Neymar’s arrival at Barça has been a positive one for the club. He has done a great job in fitting in with the team and has impressed on the pitch. His performance during Messi’s absence even gave the fans a sense of reassurance as the club entered the New Year as league leaders and still in the running for all three competitions. However, Neymar faces a difficult challenge as the second half of the season commences where most recent Barça transfers have sizzled in the first half of the season only to fizzle in the ensuing second half.
Neymar kicked off his Barça career with the equalizer goal in the first leg of the Supercopa that turned out to be difference in a 1-1 aggregate tie against Atlético Madrid. Neymar didn’t blow us away with his performances early on but then again, it is rather difficult to shine while Messi is around. Nonetheless, Neymar has been superb in fitting in with the team and being a team player. When Messi went down, Neymar adequately stepped up and his first half stats read as follows – 11 goals and 10 assists in all competitions in 1st half.
Neymar will miss this weekend’s match against Elche as her serves a ban for collecting five cautions. His return coincides with Messi’s return following a lengthy spell on the sidelines recovering from an injury. One wonders if Neymar will regress or continue to impress for the second half of the season where the competition will get tougher domestically and in Europe. Recent history has shown us that those who have a strong start to their Barça debut reach a disappointing finale.
Cesc and Zlatan Ibrahimovic come to mind as those who were remarkable in their Barça debuts and then struggled down the stretch. Cesc’s first half of the season saw him mostly come off the bench and help the team. Some of his achievements consisted of scoring a great header goal in San Mames against Bilbao along with insurance goals in the UEFA Super Cup against Porto, against Real Madrid in the Bernabéu in league action and in the FIFA Club World Cup Final against Santos. Unfortunately, his form would dip following the New Year. Although he did score 17 goals in all competitions in his first season, he only managed to score four goals in the second half of the season. Those four goals were scored in January and February and Cesc would go on an absurd dry run until the rest of the season. That dry run meant he could not score for three months and resulted in him becoming an unused substitute or be substituted in the second half if he was to start.
Ibrahimovic also endured a similar fate during his lone season with the club. Ibra won three titles as he featured in the Supercopa, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. Unlike Cesc, he did not manage to score in either of those games but he did score the only goal at the Camp Nou against Real Madrid. Ibra’s first half with Barça saw him score 11 goals in all competitions and he and Messi seemed like the dynamic duo upfront. However, the second half was one to forget as Ibra’s form suffered immensely coupled with some injuries as he only managed to score 9 goals, two of them in a memorable encounter against Arsenal in London. His popularity nosedived after poor performances against Inter Milan and his criticism of Guardiola made him persona non-grata and was then sold to AC Milan.
It’s not easy to play for Barça. Over the years, we have seen players struggle to fit in with Barça such as Mark Hughes, Hagi, Zambrotta, and Ibrahimovic. Neymar returns to face Getafe in the cup tie and Atlético Madrid next week. He has from now to May to beat that trend. The competition will be tougher and the backlash will be fierce if Barça stumble along the way. Hopefully Neymar will be the one to buck that trend where his challenge is to continue to do well and even step it up for the second half of the season.
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