Brazil fans will be sweating over their star player Neymar, after the 25 year-old forward limped out of training on Tuesday. The former Barcelona man felt discomfort in his right foot during the Selecao’s training session and after briefly trying to continue the session was led away by team physio Bruno Mazziotti.
There had already been rumblings over the PSG star’s fitness following his team’s 1-1 draw to Switzerland in the opening game of Group E, the 26-year-old suffering a knock to his ankle against the Swiss.
The 25-year-old had missed an outdoor training session on Monday after feeling ongoing pain from Brazil’s opening match against Switzerland.
Neymar picked up a knock in the match after being repeatedly fouled on 10 separate occasions.
“He was feeling pain due to the large number of fouls he suffered in the Switzerland game,” a Brazil spokesman said on Tuesday.
Neymar was fouled 10 times against in his first competitive match since returning from injury – the highest number of fouls suffered by a player in a World Cup fixture since 1998.
Despite this stat, Switzerland manager Vladimir Petkovic denied that his team had unfairly singled out PSG’s world record signing.
“Most of the duels were perfectly clean and very often we had one-on-ones with Neymar. I didn’t see any bad fouls. My team played it very cleverly. We did some good things and I’m pleased.”
Swiss captain and new Arsenal signing Stephan Lichtsteiner also chastised the forward for going down too easily.
“It’s very difficult playing him. He is fast and technical; you need to keep up with him all the time because he is dangerous. It’s a big challenge. And I was a little bit worried about the referee. Every time he fell down it was a whistle, a foul, so that was a bit of a challenge.”
Neymar missed a large spell of the French season after breaking a bone in his foot back in February, and returned just in time for the World Cup.
Brazil’s next match is on Friday against Costa Rica, and should Neymar manage to shake off his injury, the forward is more than likely in for another tough outing.
Anthony Nlebem reporting from Saint Petersburg/Russia
