DIETMAR HAMANN believes Neymar does not belong in the same category as some of the Brazil greats of the past.
The mercurial 30-year-old makes his return from injury for the Selecao when he starts in their last-16 World Cup clash with South Korea.
His reinstatement will be a major boost for Brazilian fans who will be hoping that he can inspire the Samba Boys to winning the World Cup for the first time in 20 years.
The five-time winners last lifted the cup in 2002 in, conveniently enough, South Korea and Japan.
Since then, they have made it to the semi-finals once – in 2014 – when they were famously beaten 7-1 by Germany.
Manager Tite will be hoping that having Neymar, who is his country’s second-highest ever goalscorer behind only Pele, can bridge that 20-year gap.
However, appearing on RTE, Hamann claimed the PSG ace does not fill the shoes left by the likes of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, and other members of that great ’02 team.
He said: “If you look back at the team that won the World Cup in 2002, you had RIvaldo, Ronaldinho just burst onto the scene, Ronaldo, Cafu at right-back, Roberto Carlos.
“They were top top players.
“I think he’s got to do more.
“He’s won the Champions League once with Barcelona when he was a supporting act to Messi and I hope we see in this knock-out stage now the real Neymar.”
While their eventual exit in their home country in 2014 was a humiliation, much of the reason why they got as far as they did was down to Neymar.
They relied heavily on the then-22-year-old, and he delivered by scoring four goals before suffering a back injury in their quarter-final win over Colombia.
The profile of the team is different eight years on, with the likes of Antony, Raphinha, Vinicius Jr, Richarlison, and a litany of others providing exciting attacking talent.
And Hamann believes the share of responsibility among the players will help Neymar in Qatar.
He added: “The difference this year to previous tournaments is they have a squad now where I don’t think they are depending on him as much as they did eight years ago.
“If you look at the bench with Martinelli, Rodrygo, Bruno Guimarães, they have players there who can be world class players over the next few years, so I don’t think they depend on him that much and that might help him.”