Neymar rose to fame once he conquered South America with Santos, but he had already started to make a name for himself in the youth teams. That’s why other European giants set their sights on him long before he arrived at Barcelona.
In fact, Bayern Munich were reportedly among those sides. Élber Giovane de Souza, former Brazilian forward who worked as a scout for the Bavarian side, revealed that he wanted to bring Ney to Germany when he was still very young: “It was the Copa São Paulo and at that time I was working as a talent scout for Bayern Munich in South America. I saw this player who was, I don’t know, 15 or 16 years old, playing against guys who were 19 or 20. I thought, ‘for God’s sake, this kid is a phenomenon!’.”
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Bayern gave up on a young Neymar
“Then I went back to find out who this kid really was and he was already earning his 30 thousand euros a month. I said, ‘guys, you’re going to have to give him a very expensive contract because if at 15 he’s already earning 30 thousand… He had security around him. When he entered the field, security was there, when he left the field, the guard was also there. I said ‘I don’t think he’s for us, but he’s a great player’,” continued the former Bayern forward, who couldn’t convince the club to make this investment.
— Neymar Jr (@neymarjr) April 2, 2024
“Then, in the end, they said, ‘No, leave him alone, he’s too young’. Bayern Munich doesn’t have the habit of buying a new kid, especially from South America, so he stayed there until we ended up seeing him at Barcelona later,” he added.
After four successful seasons at Vila Belmiro, where he won the Copa Libertadores, Copa do Brasil, and Recopa Sudamericana, Neymar moved to Barcelona in the summer of 2013. From there, he established himself as the global star he is today.
