It’s World Cup time! Ever tuned into a professional soccer game? Has it ever struck you how dramatic the injuries are? And despite that how astonishingly quick the recovery times are? Some of the players seem to be weebles–knock them down and they wobble about and pop right back up! And there is no player more infamous for this in Brazil than their own golden boy, Neymar.
Brazilians still love a good meme
Brazilians treat everyone like family. This can be good; they’re renowned for being welcoming to strangers. At the same time, it also means that they will grace you with their opinion on how you should do everything and they sometimes are SAVAGE to public figures. Like, your older brother who knows all your embarrassing secrets kind of savage. They will ravage them with memes and take no prisoners.
Right now the World Cup is happening and everyone is obsessed with soccer (to wit: my employer issued me a whole new uniform in yellow and green to wear specifically during these next two weeks). So it’s only natural that they’d turn their big-sibling sights to the soccer players.
And Neymar really deserves it
Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, the Brazilian’s lead forward and one of the best scorers, is infamous for dropping to the field in theatrical convulsions of agony at the slightest provocation.
The Neymar faithfuls defend his behavior saying that it’s a defensive move on his part (one amusingly commented that he “just feels gravity greater than others“). He’s such a good scorer he really does get an inordinate amount of, ahem, attention from the opposing teams. In the first World Cup he got pretty roughed up. His supporters say that he drops at the slightest touch as a pre-emptive tactic to force them to keep their distance and not injure him up too much. Basically, they say that he’s playing possum.

But even the most objective and faithful has gotta admit that he’s kinda ridiculous. Pull on his jersey (a violation), and he’s rolling on the grass clutching his knee.

It doesn’t help that he’s also the famous pretty boy, the rock star, the one always sporting the crazy hairdo and the stylish clothes off the field. Beause if there’s anything else that Brazilians love to do with their memes, it’s leveling the playing field. No one likes that uppity cousin; better to make them remember we knew them when they were potty training.
So Brazilians have been ribbing Neymar HARD. They are dragging him from here to Moscow and back. Once again, my phone won’t stop pinging with What’sApp notifications. The memes and jokes are flying fast and furious. They’ve had me laughing out loud all week.
So I thought I’d share:
- “–Neymar, get up from there, we’re still singing the National Anthem!”
“–Oh Ref–foul here! Pow!”
- “When you go to the store with your mom and she doesn’t buy what you want.”
- “Let’s see him fall now. LOL”
- “People have been talking so much about Neymar that it’s likely that he’ll even show up [“fall” in Portuguese] on the SAT tests.”
- “How cool is it that this table soccer game has only Neymars?”
- “Ok everybody back to work, because the only person who gets paid to stay laying down is Neymar.”
- “I’m going to ask Pimentel [the governador of Minas Gerais] to launch a Neymar Credit card…. the payments drop within the hour.”
- “What kind of Brazil do I want? The Brazil that want is one where the price of gasoline falls as much as Neymar.”
- “Tomorrow at 9:00am [the local time of the Brazil-Costa Rica game] don’t forget to turn your TVs sideways so that you can see Neymar standing up.”
- Even his hairdo got lambasted…
- And at the close of the Costa Rica game, one co-worker won the Grand Savage Trophy with:”Folks, please don’t post any more videos, photos, or commentaries about Neymar. My phone has dropped itself four times today. Thanks.”
See?? BRAZILIANS ARE SAVAGE AS F—.
They love you, but don’t get too high on your own self-importance before the family reunion. They’ll never let you live it down.
Bless you, Malvina. I particularly liked the table soccer game. Didn’t we use to call it “foosball”? I would really like to share this installment with John Kinsella. Don’t know if you ever met him. Retired professor who used to teach in USM then moved to Ireland to head a department there. Now he moved back to Maine and retired there. He really struggles to keep Spanish and Portuguese alive. No one to talk to about literature, etc.
foosball! that was the word! I am TERRIBLE at that game; clearly my brain has revengefully blocked the name. 🙂 Thank you! I never did meet John. I certainly can sympathize with the struggle of keeping up languages. It ain’t for the faint of heart!
I’m surprised that also in Brazil such kind of memes are popular. It’s nice that Neymar make smile people all around the world.
Hi Malvina
Thanks for sharing. I totally forgot how funny Brazilians u memes are. I know this is past due. Still funny.
Again, Thanks
Josie