Brazil fans will be sweating over their star player Neymar, after the forward limped out of training today. The former Barcelona man felt discomfort in his right foot during the Selecao's training session on Tuesday and after briefly trying to continue the session was led away by team physio Bruno Mazziotti.
Neymar leaving training.
(@Esp_Interativo) pic.twitter.com/LHzHZhwHhS
— Brazil Football ?? (@BrazilEdition) June 19, 2018
There had already been rumblings over the PSG star's fitness following his team's 1-1 draw to Switzerland in the opening game of Group E, the 26-year-old suffering a knock to his ankle against the Swiss.
Neymar was fouled 10 times against in his first competitive match since returning from injury - the highest number of fouls suffered by a player in a World Cup fixture since 1998.
Despite this stat, Switzerland manager Vladimir Petkovic denied that his team had unfairly singled out PSG's world record signing:
Most of the duels were perfectly clean and very often we had one-on-ones with Neymar... I didn't see any bad fouls. My team played it very cleverly. We did some good things and I'm pleased.
Swiss captain and new Arsenal signing Stephan Lichtsteiner also chastised the forward for going down too easily:
It’s very difficult playing him. He’s fast, he’s technical, you need to keep up with him all the time because he’s dangerous. It’s a big challenge. And I was a little bit worried about the referee. Every time he fell down it was a whistle, a foul, so that was a bit of a challenge.
Brazil's next match is this Friday against Serbia, and should Neymar manage to shake off his most recent injury, the forward is more than likely in for another tough outing against Nemanja Matic and company.
