This is part of a series of articles examining the impact of the five most expensive footballers. For an overview of the rules guiding this (unscientific) study and the players being examined, please see the introductory article.
Arguably one of the game’s most naturally talented players, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior has been a player in demand since he made his debut for Santos. This is shown by the fact that he has been involved in THREE transfers worth over €50m.
However, due to the fact that the most recent transfer took place only a few months ago, only two shall be considered: His move to Barcelona, followed by his move to PSG.
Neymar to Barcelona (€88m): 2013 to 2017
A transfer that saw more than its fair share of controversy in the aftermath, Neymar’s move to Barcelona was also something of a soap opera, involving two potential suitors in the form of Real Madrid and his eventual destination. But how did it work out for the club?
During the eight-year period being examined, Barcelona were THE dominant force in the Spanish league, winning the competition 5 times. And they didn’t just win it, they won it in style, averaging 91.625 points out of a possible 114.
To put that into perspective, in order to accumulate 91 points, a team would need to win 30 and draw 1 out of a possible 38 matches (for a win percentage of 78.95%). Of course, that average takes away from the sheer dominance of the 100 points accumulated in 2012/13 (won 32, drew 4, lost 2)
| Season | League Position | League Points (Max 114) |
|---|---|---|
| 2011/12 (without) | 2 | 91 |
| 2012/13 (without) | 1 | 100 |
| 2013/14 (with) | 2 | 87 |
| 2014/15 (with) | 1 | 94 |
| 2015/16 (with) | 1 | 91 |
| 2016/17 (with) | 2 | 90 |
| 2017/18 (without) | 1 | 93 |
| 2018/19 (without) | 1 | 87 |
| Avg. 91.625 |
Interestingly, though, the period when Neymar was at the club (four years), seems to have been slightly less succesful for the team in terms of league trophies. Out of the 5 league title wins, 3 were achieved without Neymar. Beyond that, even the final points tally (dashed line in the graph above) was higher without him in the team (92.75 without versus 90.5 with).
Was he holding the team back? Or was it simply a matter of an underperforming team? Let’s see what his individual contributions were.
| Season | Club League Goals | Goals | Assists1 | % Contribution2 | Match Winners3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011/12 (without) | 114 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2012/13 (without) | 115 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2013/14 (with) | 100 | 9 | 10 | 19.00% | 2 |
| 2014/15 (with) | 110 | 22 | 9 | 28.18% | 7 |
| 2015/16 (with) | 112 | 24 | 16 | 35.71% | 5 |
| 2016/17 (with) | 116 | 13 | 14 | 23.28% | 0 |
| 2017/18 (without) | 99 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2018/19 (without) | 90 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
During the two seasons when Barcelona won the league, Neymar was at the heart of the team’s performances, contributing to 28.18% of the team’s goals in 2014/15 and a genuinely impressive 35.71% in 2015/16.
He also netted 7 (2014/15) and 5 (2015/16) match-winning goals respectively, which would have earned the team 21 and 15 points respectively.
If we were to deduct the points earned by Neymar from the final points tally in the two seasons, Barcelona would have ended the seasons:
(In addition to winning the league, the 2014/15 season saw Barcelona win the UEFA Champions League and Spanish Cup, a feat that’s only ever been achieved by ten European clubs.)
By contrast, the seasons when Neymar wasn’t at his best were the seasons when the team appeared to struggle (relatively speaking), finishing second in both seasons.
His debut season was the only season in which his goal contribution was below 20%. And even though he contributed to 23.28% of the team’s goals in 2016/17, he scored no match winners.
Interestingly, the number of goals scored by the team in the season immediately after Neymar’s departure dropped by 14.66%. And the decrease only continued the following season, reaching a low of 90 goals. So while the team continued to be successful, winning the league both times, was there perhaps an element of flair lacking?
Going back to our measure of success, how well did Neymar’s transfer work for Barcelona?
During his time, Barcelona won a total of 9 trophies, winning at least one trophy per season:
- 1 x FIFA Club World Cup (2016)
- 1 x Spanish Super Cup (2013/14)
- 1 x UEFA Champions League (2014/15)
- 1 x UEFA Supercup (2015/16)
- 2 x Spanish League (2014/15, 2015/16)
- 3 x Spanish Cup (2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17)
Clearly, Neymar played a big part in Barcelona’s successes during his four-year stay. And it is this fact that contributed to his next transfer.
Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain (€222m): 2017 to 2023
The transfer that shook the world. The highest-ever transfer fee paid for a player (so far).
Beyond the transfer fee alone, the total outlay of the transfer reportedly cost PSG a whopping €489m. But the club felt that this was worth it. They were already the dominant force in the French league, winning the competition 4 times in the preceding 5 years. Neymar’s transfer, the club felt, would help them move to the next level, winning the Champions League. (Spoiler: It didn’t.)
The move also matched Neymar’s ambitions of being the main man in a team, having felt somewhat overshadowed by Lionel Messi at Barcelona.
So how did it work out?
| Season | League Position | League Points (Max 114) |
|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 (without) | 1 | 96 |
| 2016/17 (without) | 2 | 87 |
| 2017/18 (with) | 1 | 93 |
| 2018/19 (with) | 1 | 91 |
| 2019/204 (with) | 1 | 68 |
| 2020/21 (with) | 2 | 82 |
| 2021/22 (with) | 1 | 86 |
| 2022/23 (with) | 1 | 85 |
| Avg. 86 |
One can see why PSG wanted to kick on and move to the next level; they absolutely dominate the league. In the eight-year period being evaluated, they won the league 6 times, finishing second on the other two occasions.
A point to note: The points haul in the 2019/20 season is a lot lower than the other seasons due to the COVID-enforced cancellation of the 2019/20 sporting season, so there are extenuating circumstances.
Even excluding the 2019/20 season, though, the points earned by PSG in the league trended downwards, something that many would attribute to the complacency that comes from competing in the one-horse race that is the French Ligue 1 (pronounced “Ligue Un”); a point that we are most certainly going to revisit.
| Season | Club League Goals | Goals | Assists1 | % Contribution2 | Match Winners3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 (without) | 102 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2016/17 (without) | 83 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2017/18 (with) | 108 | 19 | 13 | 29.63% | 2 |
| 2018/19 (with) | 105 | 15 | 8 | 21.90% | 6 |
| 2019/204 (with) | 75 | 13 | 6 | 25.33% | 7 |
| 2020/21 (with) | 86 | 9 | 6 | 17.44% | 2 |
| 2021/22 (with) | 90 | 13 | 6 | 21.11% | 0 |
| 2022/23 (with) | 89 | 13 | 11 | 26.97% | 5 |
Unlike his time at Barcelona, Neymar needed no time to adjust to his new team. In his first season, he scored 19 goals, almost singlehandedly contributing to the 30.12% swing in goals scored by the team (108 in 2017/18 compared to 83 in 2016/17). This was on top of his 13 assists, leading to an overall goal contribution of 29.63% that year.
And yet, despite posting such impressive numbers, only two of those goals were match winners, contributing 6 points to the team’s cause.
Statistically, something that jumps out is the 2019/20 season. During that season, PSG only played 27 games. And yet, Neymar scored 7 match-winning goals. In other words, he won the team 25.93% of their games in the league, a number that just exceeds his overall goal contribution of 25.33%.
It was during this season that PSG got the closest to winning the Champions League, agonisingly losing to Bayern Munich in the final. Had things turned out differently, one feels that this would have been the season when PSG’s lavish outlay might have been vindicated and Neymar would have cemented his place as both a club legend and one of the game’s greats. Sadly, though, that didn’t happen.
And PSG only ever got as close to tasting Champions League success in the 2020/21 season, reaching the semi-finals. They only got as far as the second round of the competition (last-16) in each of the four other seasons.
Going back to the numbers, we see that much like the points tally, the goals tally also trended downwards over the course of Neymar’s stay at the club. And it is at this point that I get to talk about the club’s utter dominance in the French league.
| Season | League Points | Difference (#1 - #2) | Points w/o Neymar | Position w/o Neymar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 (with) | 93 | 13 | 87 | 1 |
| 2018/19 (with) | 91 | 16 | 73 | 2 |
| 2019/204 (with) | 68 | 12 | 47 | 4 |
| 2020/21 (with) | 82 | -1 | 76 | 3 |
| 2021/22 (with) | 86 | 15 | 86 | 1 |
| 2022/23 (with) | 85 | 1 | 70 | 3 |
In the seasons that PSG won the league, the difference in points between them and the club that finished second, with the exception of 2022/23, was always in the double digits. Always.
Calculating the average of their title-winning seasons, PSG won the league by an average of 11.4 points. Even factoring in the lone season when they didn’t win the league, the point difference would still be 9.33.
This means that over the six years, PSG could have sat out 18 league games (3 per season) and would still have been the dominant force in the league.
What’s even more interesting, though, is the role that Neymar played (or didn’t play). Out of the 5 league triumphs (again, asterisk against 2019/20), two would have come regardless of Neymar’s match-winning goals. And in all but one of those seasons, PSG would have finished in the top three.
Despite all this, from a sporting perspective, Neymar’s transfer was undoubtedly a success. During his time at the club, he lifted 14 trophies:
- 2 x French League Cup (2017/18, 2019/20)
- 3 x French Cup (2017/18, 2019/20, 2020/21)
- 4 x French Super Cup (2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2022/23)
- 5 x French League (2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2021/22, 2022/23)
That being said, there is still a bittersweet feeling that accompanies his time in Paris. He missed 119 matches (about 20 each season) during his time at the club due to injuries, often at key points in the season. (Side bar: Just how brilliant would he have been had he managed to stay fit?)
Given PSG’s reported ambition of winning the Champions League and Neymar’s own ambition of being the main man, the fact that the team barely lived up to expectations in all but two seasons would likely have been disappointing to all parties involved.
Still, his exploits at PSG earned him a €90m transfer to Al-Hilal.
And that’s the end of part one.
Until the next one, stay safe.
Footnotes
For a basic understanding of what constitutes an assist, see this Wikipedia page. ↩ ↩2
”% Contribution” is the total number of goals and assists contributed by a player expressed as a percentage of the total goals scored by the team. ↩ ↩2
To best understand the idea behind a match-winning goal, consider the following examples:
- In a match that ends 1-0, the match winner is, obviously, the only goal.
- In a match that ends 2-0, the match winner is the first goal.
- In a match that ends 4-2, the match winner is the third goal scored by the winning team.
In cases where points earned by a player are calculated, only the match winners are considered. Points earned in a draw are NOT factored in. ↩ ↩2
Season shortened by COVID-19. ↩ ↩2 ↩3