looking at Neymar's development

Hello, today I am going to talk about how geography impacted neymars career,

It is well known that most Brazilian footballers play with flair and guile, just look at players like Pele, Rivelino, Zico or Ronaldinho and Neymar is no exception. Neymar is known for his tricks, close control and dribbling.

he has been dubbed the next Pele for the Brazilian national team mainly for his goal scoring exploits and inventivness when with the ball.

Neymar was born in town of Mogi das Cruzes in São Paulo in 1992 but he moved to the coastal town of São Vicente later the same year. he often played football on the streets practising his skills by doing keepy-uppies with his friends.

Neymar harnessed his skills as a youngster by playing futsal (indoor football that teaches close control and good technique) for his local side, Portuguesa santista.

 In brazil, young children start off playing futsal and when they are old enogh they have a choice whether to continue with futsal or move to 11 a-side full pitch.

Santos scouts saw Neymar play for his club in an 11 a-side match and signed him but were almost piped to his signature by rivals Sao Paulo.

At 14 whilst still in Santos youth team, he was invited by real madrid to fly to spain and have a trial during Real's 'GALACTICOS' era and he met many of his idols like Ronaldo,Zidane,Roberto Carlos and Robinho.

After a succesful trial he was all but signed to Real but they were not willing to pay Santos €50,000

Neymar quickly went through the ranks back at Santos and made his first appearance as a 17 year old against oeste.

in 2010 Santos rejected a £12million offer from west ham and later a £19million offer from chelsea for the youngster.

after more hype he was being linked with multi million pound moves to england (notably chelsea ,manchester united and arsenal) and to Spain (Real madrid and Barcelona)

Neymar has since moved to Barcelona for a reported €50million although the exact figure paid by Barca is unknown.

Neymars career seems to have stagnated at Barca where he and Leo Messi have failed to link with each other as the fans would like, although he is only 22 he has a lot of time ahead of him to improve and to hopefully fulfil his potential.