Neymar -
David Vincent / AP / SIPA
Neymar will be absent against Barça at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.
An old habit for the Brazilian in the round of 16 of the Champions League since his arrival in Paris.
In view of his sleep data, the crack of PSG did not really put all the chances on his side to be on his feet and help Mbappé and the others.
False stupor at Camp des Loges, where the news fell on Tuesday morning like a bad soap opera.
Neymar will not appear in the group for the knockout stages of the Champions League against Barça, an old habit at this stage of the competition.
We will never know if he would have recovered in time from his month-old adductor injury with the hygiene of Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, we can say that the Brazilian did not put all the chances on his side to help his friends to finish the job against his old club.
Because yes, even when his only job is to rest well, the Ney has trouble sticking to it.
You only have to search her Face It profile, an independent platform for multiplayer video game competitions, to see the incompatibility between the hours when the Parisian star succumbs to her cute sin and the life that she should be. of a man approaching his thirties eager to dominate his sport.
Because at the risk of sounding like boomers, we are pretty sure that the secret of physical recovery is not found in games of CS: GO in 5v5 at 2:04.
Where in the live-tweets of season 21 of Big Brother do Brazil at four in the morning.
A thought for non-Portuguese speakers who first thought they saw coded messages on the future of Ney at PSG on Twitter, before understanding that the war-wounded was just throwing his best valves on the few people to respect confinement in Bolsonaro's Brazil.
For the anecdote, the Parisian had his small role to play in the elimination to 99% of the voice of the rapper Karol Conka, who had drawn his wrath after leading a cabal against another candidate.
Neymar then celebrated the ouster of the plague victim with great fanfare, posting a photo of his tattoo "99% faith, 1% chance", which corresponds to his pre-remounted motto of 2017 (against his current employer).
In short, the kind of story that lifts humanity very high and of which one wonders if it was well worth the trouble of screwing up its convalescence.
Neymar's enemy number 1 during his convalescence - Fotoarena / Sipa USA / SIPA
Night's sleep vs hypersophisticated gadgets
We enlarge the line, but not too much.
Because when it comes to muscle recovery, sleep is the basis of everything, says Xavier Frezza, physical trainer in charge of twenty professional players in Ligue 1 and abroad.
“If there's only one thing to keep, it's sleep.
And that's what many athletes can sometimes forget.
They may feel like they did it right because they had a cold bath, massage, etc., while going to bed very late.
But it's doing things backwards.
"
Neymar is therefore doing things backwards when he wants to silence his detractors by sharing an explanatory article on his official website about his miracle oxygen-based therapy in a hyperbaric chamber where the internal pressure is, can we? read, greater than atmospheric pressure and promotes recovery.
Not that it is in itself ineffective, as well as the naps he claims to offset his nights as a college student.
Simply, the fact of being out of phase reduces the performance of the ceremonial.
Frezza:
“Caricaturing a little, if a player goes to bed at 4am and he has to be at the training center at 10am, what will he do?
He will be up at 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m., which is a four-hour night.
It is very insufficient.
Then, he will return home in the middle of the afternoon and go back to sleep during the day for the four or five hours he misses.
And he'll start his day at 8 p.m.
We cannot go against nature, human beings are made to sleep at night.
On the other hand, the basis of training is to weaken the body during the session, so that it becomes stronger again when it regenerates.
But for that he needs recovery through sleep and diet.
If we weaken it by not giving it what it needs, at best we will remain at the same level, at worst we will weaken it until the injury, sometimes repeatedly.
"
The theory of happiness
The joy of living aspect has always encroached on Neymar's health… it seems for his good.
One of the great theories put forward by the player's entourage is that he must be happy to fully express his potential as an artist in the field, and that a monastic life would have terrible consequences on his morale.
“The life of a footballer is not only football, and Neymar's father understood it very quickly, thus illustrated Dhonatan, former teammate of the Santos training center.
He always accepted that there were friends at home, he wanted him to have free time, to have fun, to decompress.
"
This old habit has obviously resisted in adolescence: the Ney never got rid of the "Toiz" with whom he leads a telenovela life.
A relationship at best a little unhealthy, at worst toxic where everyone wants to party hoping that the heyday of mega-crack lasts as long as possible, and that the former coach of the Brazilian Muricy Ramalho puts on the account of 'a South-Am friendship that we Europeans cannot understand.
Well let's see.
"The Neymar who does not play eclipses the one who plays"
It all sounds like a pretty good excuse.
The best years of Neymar's European trip - to Barca - remain those where he did things pretty much correctly (on his personal scale).
Trend reflected by the number of games played per season: his best season in Ligue 1 (20) does not even closely match his worst in La Liga (26).
The freedom and happiness of the Parisian years do indeed reward us with a few European masterclasses, without allowing Le Ney to aspire to continuity.
And we come to the great drama of this player.
As
O Globo
journalist
Carlos Eduardo Mansur
wrote two years ago
, “the Neymar who does not play creates memories that eclipse the Neymar who plays.
“It was true after the elimination against Manchester, it will always be on Wednesday night in the event of another disaster.
His recital at Old Trafford or his big match at the Parc against Basaksehir would be eclipsed by the umpteenth injury that prevented him from defending his club's ambitions in the 8th.
And at 29, it may be time to ask if the Ney does not spend his career wasting the most beautiful talent of a generation.
Neymar in full cryotherapy session - Christophe Ena / AP / SIPA
Everything is of course far from over, and the probable scenario, that of a qualification for PSG in the quarterfinals, would give him a chance to continue his quest for the Ballon d'Or.
But a wind of resignation is already blowing in Brazil, where it is believed that it has already lost a lot of time.
Felipe Saad, in ambassador mode: “By force, the Brazilians are not even angry, they just feel sorry for Ney.
He's our best player by far, everyone likes him, but with the series of negative episodes in terms of image… people find that a shame for him.
They dreamed that he would be voted the best player in the world and everyone thought it was inevitable.
And there he arrives in his thirties.
"
Past the symbolic bar, it will no longer be a question of being the best but of longevity.
Xavier Frezza: "he has a little bit of leeway in the sense that he is not yet 32-33 years old, but the older you get, the more impact sleep has on performance".
Everything is not cooked for Neymar, but we should not push back the date of coming of age further under penalty of going straight through in time of regrets.
Soon, it will be too late to put the controller down and leave the Rio time zone.
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