As their star player fell to the ground, screaming in pain with his arm bent round to his back, a whole nation breathed in and feared the worst.
Neymar was Brazil’s talisman, the one who would lead the national team to glory on home soil at the 2014 World Cup but, after a knee to the back as he challenged for the ball with Colombia’s Juan Zuniga, the then 22-year-old’s vertebrae was broken and he was out of the tournament.
Although Neymar is now 30, he’s in some of the best form of his career and there’s a real hope this could be his and Brazil’s year.
Since Neymar first burst onto the scene as an explosive youngster for Santos in 2009, there was the expectation that he would go on to be a huge star for club and country.
The forward can certainly be proud of his achievements to date. He is the most expensive footballer in history. He scored 105 goals in 186 games for Barcelona and has netted 115 times in 163 appearances for Paris St-Germain. And he is Brazil’s second-highest scorer with 75 goals, behind only Pele.
However, he has not yet been able to show his best at a World Cup. While injury cruelly robbed him of a potential fairytale on home soil in 2014, he was part of a Brazil team that underperformed in Russia four years later, despite scoring in wins over Costa Rica and Mexico.
Neymar has been part of the national team for 12 years, but his only major successes with his country are the 2013 Confederations Cup and Olympic gold at Rio 2016. He missed the 2019 Copa America, which Brazil won, because of injury.