This week, Neymar left Paris Saint-Germain for the Saudi club Al Hilal on a two-year deal. Reportedly, this contract will see him receive 160 million euros a year. Roll the clip:

I don’t think I need to spend much time explaining to you all how this is Very Bad for pretty much everybody except Neymar and his bank account. The sums of money involved—and the fact that his nine-figure salary makes Neymar only the third-best paid footballer in the world, because the Saudis have splashed so much cash that Kylian Mbappé is now the only European-based player among the top 10 best paid—portend a grim power shift for the global game, as Saudi Arabia looks to leverage its vast oil wealth to launder its human rights abuses and establish itself as a hub for tourism and business. It’s also obviously bad for Brazil’s national team: not only is the guy who’s still pretty undeniably our most gifted player going to be playing in a much less challenging environment, but his mere presence there is likely to help convince other Brazilian stars to leave Europe while still in their prime. (Fabinho and Roberto Firmino preceded Neymar in their moves to the kingdom, but both seem pretty well washed at the highest level anyway. But someone like Alisson?)

It’s also worth noting that by intervening in the civil war in Yemen and establishing land, sea, and air blockades into the country, Saudi Arabia has directly caused a famine that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. But who among us, right?

Let’s get back to Neymar and think about some positives and silver linings. One is that the deal is only two years, meaning that once Neymar is done getting the bag he can return to Europe for a season ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Another is that maybe it’s actually good that he’ll be spending a couple of years in an easier league, since it could mean less wear and tear on his body. Many of Neymar’s injury problems in Europe have come from being persistently fouled, and you have to figure that the Saudi Pro League will have a vested interest in giving one of their biggest investments a bit more protection from the refs. (Though for what it’s worth, Cristiano Ronaldo is being fouled at a similar or higher rate in the SPL to what he experienced in his last few years in European leagues. Very different player, though.) He’s also likely to play a couple fewer games, with only 18 teams in the league. Plus, Neymar will be 34 at the next World Cup. Being in your 30s is no longer the death sentence to a footballing career it was even 15 years ago, but any reduction in wear and tear is important at that age. Especially if he keeps trying to play like he still has the acceleration he had before the injuries began piling up. He may have less incentive to work to change his style of play against weaker opposition, but then again, he didn’t do much in that department even while he was in Europe.

But really, the biggest positive may simply be that he’s no longer subject to PSG’s medical staff, whom I’ve come to envision as a group of bone saw-wielding medieval plague doctors with beak masks. Ha! Bone saw! My choice of words there wasn’t intentional. But it seems like a good excuse to bring up the time that Saudi government operatives dismembered Jamal Khashoggi with a bone saw.

Why do I speak with such confidence that Neymar will remain in the Brazil fold despite his move to a footballing backwater? Well, because Brazil’s new manager has all-but said as much! Globo reported this week that Fernando Diniz is looking at four “pillars” of the Seleção as he starts his tenure: Neymar, Vini Jr., Marquinhos, and Bruno Guimarães.

We should talk a bit about Diniz, though. His situation is a bit unusual: he is, in theory, a stopgap option for the next year until Carlo Ancelotti’s contract at Real Madrid expires. The Ancelotti saga has been a whole thing, with the CBF relentlessly pursuing their man even as it became obvious that they couldn’t convince him or Real to terminate that contract early—so now, in all likelihood, he’ll be coming into the team a full year and a half into a World Cup cycle. So, in the meantime, they’ve appointed as the interim manager perhaps the most interesting Brazilian tactician, though these days that’s like saying somebody is the most clinical Spanish striker.

But Fernando Diniz is genuinely very interesting. He first came to the attention of the Brazilian football scene as the head of Audax-SP in the mid-2010s, a plucky little Campeonato Paulista entrant with an occasionally suicidal devotion to possession and building plays out of the back. I remember watching São Paulo absolutely tear them to shreds one year because their goalie kept trying to pass it short and failing. But then something surprising happened: in 2016, Audax damn near won the whole state championship! They beat Palmeiras in the round-robin phase, they sniped Corinthians on penalties and absolutely mauled São Paulo in the knockout rounds, and they lost to Santos in the final by the odd goal across two legs, all while playing attractive, passing football with players you didn’t think would be capable of it.

After that, Diniz bounced around a bit between Brazil’s good-not-great clubs. I wrote about his tactics at Athletico-PR in 2018 and then kind of lost track of him as my life got busier. He spent a couple of years at São Paulo, where his team developed an uncomfortable habit of coming up short when it really mattered. This was particularly noticeable in 2020, when they flopped out of the Copa Libertadores group stage, lost in the first round of the Copa Sudamericana knockout stages thanks to a stoppage-time goal, and led the Brasileirão thanks to a 17-game undefeated run, part of a larger sequence of just two losses in 24 league games, only for the team to totally fall apart down the stretch, win just two (and lose five, more than they had all season) of their last 11 games, and end up fourth in the league. Diniz got sacked halfway through that meltdown, and eventually ended up at Fluminense in 2022, where he’s now getting a ton of attention for his unique tactics, referred to as “Dinizismo” in the Brazilian media, or, in its closest English equivalent, “relationism”.

What are these? Well, recently I haven’t been sufficiently tuned into football tactics, or watched enough of Fluminense, to give an original answer, so I’ll pass along some good reading. Jamie Hamilton gives a very detailed breakdown of the core principles of relationism (complete with helpful GIFs!) and lauds Fluminense as an exemplar of the philosophy. As Tim Vickery described Dinizismo,

In the system of Diniz there is no necessity for certain spaces to be filled at all times, to have players rotating into set positions. The setup is more free, more anarchic, with the team often grouping together into reduced space, often on one side of the field, at times with both wingers in close proximity. When it clicks it can have the aspect of improvised street football. Those human bonds favoured by Diniz have helped create a team where the players trust each other enough to play in an unorthodox way — and given that they leave plenty of space for the opposing counter, a method with its own risks.

Tim vickery

If I had to describe it based on my limited viewing, I’d bring up the example of those pictures you see sometimes illustrating the importance of compactness when pressing or defending. Pictures like this one I just found on the web, for instance (credit to Dipanjan Chowdhury):

Nine of Sevilla’s ten outfield players are here forming a box only a bit more than half the width of the field to deny Barcelona space. Diniz’s Fluminense often looks a lot like this picture, except for two key differences: one, they’re rarely as neatly organized into a familiar shape like this rectangle, and two, they’re doing this when they have the ball, not necessarily when defending. It seems like this might be hard to implement with the limited training sessions afforded to a national team, but Diniz will also be able to work with the best collection of players he’s ever had. In a further twist, Diniz is continuing with his day job as Fluminense’s manager. Will the stress of working two jobs and inability to devote his full attention to the Seleção cause problems down the line? Hell, probably!

As I’m writing this, Diniz is scheduled to make his first callup tomorrow. I don’t expect to have this finished by then, so I’m going to make some assumptions and predictions ahead of time and see how I did when I wrap this piece up.

I’m going to temper my expectations because I expect Diniz to show a fair bit of what I called Brazilian Coach Brain some months back, when interim coach Ramon Menezes called up and started Rony for Brazil’s first game after the World Cup. Brazilian football suffers from a terrible problem of insularity, with pundits and professionals in the country seriously overestimating the quality of the domestic game compared to the top leagues in Europe. Diniz, who has never coached outside of Brazil and, in fact, is coaching a Brazilian club simultaneously with his national team responsibilities, will, if anything, be even more susceptible to this. I fully expect a few of his current or recent Fluminense charges to get a look, and not just hyped youngsters like midfielders André and Matheus Martinelli or now-Real Betis winger Luiz Henrique. No, I think there’s a good chance we see Ganso, which I honestly don’t mind because he’s such a fun player to watch and he hasn’t gotten a look for Brazil in ages, but he’d offer little long-term utility. But we could also see someone like Marcelo, who, while also fun as hell to watch, is even older, already had his time in the Seleção spotlight, and plays in a position where we desperately need to try some new blood.

Beyond that, we’re all-but guaranteed to get a handful of players from other Brazilian clubs. The younger ones I don’t mind: Vitor Roque definitely deserves a long look, while someone like Yuri Alberto or Marcos Leonardo doesn’t seem to quite have the same ceiling, but might still be worth consideration. Your Gabigols, your Ronys, your Raphael Veigas, though? (To a lesser extent, your Pedros and Gersons too, particularly after each got punched in the face in the past month?) Those 25-28-year-olds who never tried or never managed to make it in Europe? (To say nothing of older unknowns like Brasileirão top scorer Tiquinho Soares, who at least has a fairly successful tenure at Porto to his credit.) I think we’ll see a couple we like and at least two or three times as many we hate, including one or two none of us will have seen coming. There may even be one or two who played in Brazil until very recently before going to a rich Middle Eastern club, like Róger Guedes.

Oh, wait! Here’s one I think has a good shout. Tchê Tchê was part of Diniz’s Audax team that reached that Paulista final in 2016, and they later joined up again at São Paulo for a couple years. Now he’s a regular midfield starter for Botafogo as they seemingly run away with the league. I’ll bet he gets a look. Also, Flamengo’s goalie Santos, whom Diniz knows from Athletico-PR and checks the sweeper-keeper boxes.

As for European-based players? Beyond the Fab Four, who fucking knows. Diniz will be hard-pressed to drop regulars like Alisson, Ederson (he’ll probably love Ederson), Lucas Paquetá, and Rodrygo. Guys like Bremer and Joelinton, who’ve begun earning caps in the last year, are probably also in good position. I’m a little less sure about the likes of Antony, Richarlison, and Raphinha, just because they had somewhat mixed seasons last year, but Antony in particular has been looking good in preseason, and whichever one(s) Diniz calls will say something about how he sees this team shaping up. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one of the crop of young Brazilian midfielders who just moved to the Prem, most likely João Gomes or Danilo but possibly Andrey Santos and almost certainly not Matheus França.

Also, we need to find some new fullbacks but as for who those fullbacks will be, I have no clue. Vanderson had a stellar season opener for Monaco, and his teammate at left-back Caio Henrique has been talked about for a while, but Monaco has never seemed to be on the radar of any Brazil coach and I don’t see why that would be different with Diniz. I hope we’ve seen the last of Danilo, Alex Sandro, and Alex Telles, but I somehow doubt it—hell, even Telles’ own move to Saudi Arabia may no longer be a bar to his selection.

Let’s see how I did:

  • Goalkeepers: Alisson (Liverpool), Bento (Athletico), Ederson (Manchester City).
  • Fullbacks: Danilo (Juventus), Vanderson (Monaco); Caio Henrique (Monaco), Renan Lodi (Nottingham Forest).
  • Center-backs: Ibañez (Al-Ahli), Gabriel Magalhães (Arsenal), Marquinhos (PSG), Nino (Fluminense).
  • Midfielders: André (Fluminense), Bruno Guimarães (Newcastle), Casemiro (Manchester United), Joelinton (Newcastle), Raphael Veiga (Palmeiras).
  • Forwards: Antony (Manchester United), Martinelli (Arsenal), Matheus Cunha (Wolverhampton), Neymar (Al-Hilal), Richarlison (Tottenham), Rodrygo (Real Madrid), Vini Jr (Real Madrid).

Tell you what, this is better than I was expecting! I may have underestimated Diniz. Raphael Veiga is the only truly questionable selection from the Brazilian league (okay, I guess Nino isn’t great and I would’ve preferred someone like Bremer). I don’t know much about André or Bento, to be fair, but they are young and highly regarded. Ibañez, not Alex Telles, seems to be the big beneficiary of Saudi Arabia now being on the radar, and while I don’t love that, I’d much rather see him than Telles in the squad. The two Gabriels M. of Arsenal are back, which is also nice to see, especially for Magalhães, whose decision to miss a round of World Cup qualifying to be at the birth of his son probably got him blacklisted from the World Cup itself.

And Diniz actually paid attention to what’s going on at Monaco! Caio Henrique was rumored to be thinking about defecting to Spain, so it’s good to get him into the fold at last. He’ll have an interesting choice to make with these players: Danilo and Caio are fairly defensive and reserved in their position, whereas Renan Lodi and Vanderson are attack-minded and often push far up the field. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a “one forward, one back” setup with an attacking fullback on one flank and a more defensive one on the other.

As for notable exclusions: Bremer is certainly one. Éder Militão and Gabriel Jesus are both injured (not that I’d want to see GJ in the squad if he were fit, but I’m curious to see if Diniz rates him), and Lucas Paquetá was in this squad until the last minute, when the news broke that the English FA is investigating him for breaching their betting rules. Raphinha is out, but that may be as much a symptom of the competition for places on the wings as anything. And, a bit disappointingly, Vitor Roque isn’t here; instead, Diniz has gone with Matheus Cunha, a very talented center forward except that he can’t score for shit. He could definitely be poised for a breakout season with Wolves, now that they’ve sold all their other center forwards and paid fifty million dollars to sign him permanently, but this call seems a bit premature.

Perhaps Diniz is looking for strikers who fit that mold of being able to hold up play and combine with their teammates, and Cunha certainly fits that bill better than Roque (as does Richarlison, who did so to great effect at the World Cup). Having said that, his São Paulo side excelled with Brenner and Luciano, two quick and mobile strikers, paired up top, each often playing the other in behind the defense. This may not be tactically feasible at the highest level, sadly, but I have a soft spot for it because it’s how I always won games in FIFA 10. Also, with Roque and Endrick, we have two small, quick young forwards who seem perfectly suited for that sort of system and less so this sort of hold-up play. Hell, even if Endrick doesn’t pan out, we could put Vini Jr. or Gabriel Martinelli or even Rodrygo in one of those spots in a pinch.

In any case, we’ll have to wait until Brazil actually takes to the pitch in September to get further answers. Diniz’s first two games mark the start of our 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign. Up first on September 8 is a home match against Bolivia, the easiest possible start: a fixture we won 5-0 in both of our last two qualifying cycles. That might be a blessing and a curse: starting with a win will be great for establishing some good vibes and positive momentum until Diniz has more time to work with the team in training. But failing to win, or even an underwhelming performance in victory, could draw the sort of negative press nobody wants so early into their tenure. Game two is away to Peru on the 12th, a trickier but still pretty straightforward fixture; we won 4-2 in Lima in the last qualifying cycle, with Neymar scoring a hat-trick.

One last piece of news: Ramon Menezes called up his own U-23 squad today, for two friendlies against Morocco on September 7 and 11 as the team begins preparations for October’s Pan-American Games and next summer’s Olympics. Some of these players were born in 2000: appropriate age for the Pan-American Games but not the Olympics. I’ve marked those with an asterisk.

  • Goalkeepers: Gabriel Grando* (Grêmio), Matheus Cunha (Flamengo), Mycael (Athletico)
  • Fullbacks: Arthur (Bayer Leverkusen), Vinicius Tobias (Real Madrid); Welington (São Paulo), Abner* (Bétis).
  • Center-backs: Vitão* (Internacional), Lucas Halter* (Goiás), Robert Renan (Zenit), Morato (Benfica).
  • Midfielders: Andrey (Chelsea), João Gomes (Wolverhampton), Marlon Gomes (Vasco), Maurício (Internacional), Danilo (Nottingham Forest).
  • Forwards: Lázaro (Almería), Vitor Roque (Athletico), João Pedro (Brighton), Igor Paixão* (Feyernoord), Paulinho* (Atlético-MG), Marcos Leonardo (Santos).

Several of the players I thought might be in the senior squad are here instead: Vitor Roque, Marcos Leonardo, pretty much the whole contingent of young England-based midfielders. And there’s some fun names that had slipped my mind, like João Pedro. But Ramon’s image has been rather tainted by his poor performance at the U-20 World Cup and as interim head coach of the senior Seleção, so maybe we should temper our expectations.