Neymar was supposed to be resting his body this week, not testing his poker face. While Santos flew to Caracas for the first leg of their Copa Sudamericana playoff against Universidad Central de Venezuela, the Brazilian forward stayed behind in São Paulo — and was photographed at a card table instead of a training pitch.
According to Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte, whose photographers spotted him, Neymar was competing in the BSOP Winter, the Brazilian Series of Poker, in the fourth stage of the national championship at the Golden Hall of the WTC business complex in São Paulo. It was hardly a discreet outing: images of the 34-year-old shuffling chips instead of preparing for a continental fixture spread quickly across Brazilian social media.
Santos and coach Cuca framed the absence very differently. The club said Neymar was being kept in Brazil on a tailored reconditioning programme, intended to give him proper physical preparation and reduce injury risk after a demanding few months, rather than send him on a long trip to face Universidad Central de Venezuela.
That explanation became harder to sell once the poker photos surfaced. ONE, the Israeli outlet that first flagged the story, questioned whether the episode pointed to fading professional dedication, and Santos supporters used the moment to vent on social media, worried their most famous player is coasting rather than preparing for games that matter.
The timing makes it worse for Neymar. He came off the bench in Brazil's round-of-16 exit to Norway at this summer's World Cup, a 2-1 defeat in which his stoppage-time penalty — his 80th goal for the Seleção — arrived too late to change the result. It made him only the second Brazilian man, after Pelé, to score in four different World Cups, but Brazil were still eliminated, and Neymar used the aftermath to announce his retirement from international football.
He has made no comparable statement about his club career. Neymar's contract with Santos, the boyhood club he returned to in January 2025, runs through the end of 2026, and the club has said publicly that it expects him to see it out. Whether he still has the appetite for the daily grind of training and recovery is a question he has yet to answer himself.
On the pitch, Santos managed fine without him. Gabriel Bontempo, Gabriel Menino, Thaciano and Rony scored in a 4-1 rout of Universidad Central de Venezuela, with only a late Maicol Ruiz goal denting the scoreline. It leaves Santos in a commanding position ahead of the second leg at their own Vila Belmiro — officially the Estádio Urbano Caldeira — on July 28.
For a club leaning on Neymar's name as much as his football these days, the ideal story from Caracas would have been him inspiring a statement win on the road. Instead, Santos won comfortably in his absence, and the lingering image of the week is Neymar at a poker table, not on a football pitch.
