Football Statsbomb Performance Analysis

New-Look Neymar? Analyzing His On-Ball Value in 2025

28 Mar, 2025

8 min Read

By Tom Robinson

After a couple of injury-hit years, we use On-Ball Value to analyze the Neymar that returns to Brazil in 2025 and how his role has evolved from his time at Barcelona.

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Four thousand, two hundred and seventy three days.

That’s how long Santos fans had been waiting for the prodigal return of Neymar to the hallowed turf of Vila Belmiro.

In the interim 12-year period, both player and club had experienced highs and lows. Neymar scaled European football with Barcelona and PSG, but latterly suffered injuries that kept him out of crucial games for both club and country.

Meanwhile, Santos had gone from Libertadores finalists in 2020 to being relegated from the Brasileirao for the first time in their 111-year history by the end of 2023.

O Peixe bounced back at the first time of asking and now, reunited with their emblematic maverick, the feel-good factor is well and truly back. In the first month since Neymar’s return, they added 20,000 new members and 5 million new online followers, a 34% increase from 2024.

And the Neymar effect is not limited just to Santos. The widely-heralded transfer has been seen as a massive coup more generally for the Brasileirão - Brazil’s top flight - with claims of this year’s edition being potentially the most star-studded on record.

Neymar’s return to Santos also provides the perfect opportunity to look back and ask the question; how different is the Neymar who returns to Brazil in 2025 to the one who first left back in 2013?

Using Hudl Statsbomb's unique metric, On-Ball Value, we’ll analyze Neymar at these two pivotal junctures in his career to see what insights emerge.

OBV, Yeah You Know Me

Hudl Statsbomb’s On-Ball Value (OBV) is a possession-state model that objectively and quantitatively measures the value of each event on the pitch, assessing the change in probability of a team scoring and conceding as a direct result of the event. This allows analysts to differentiate between the value of different passes or actions within a possession chain that leads to a goal, as well as appropriately recognise and credit high-risk, high-reward players - so long as the effect of their actions is a net benefit to the team overall.

To find out more about OBV, watch the video below.

Looking at Neymar’s overall OBV from his seven games at Santos, he has averaged 0.22 per 90, the 5th highest among Santos players and 19th among all players to have played at least 300 Paulista minutes. However, this ranks lower than every one of his seasons at Barcelona, when he was arguably at his peak.

But while OBV calculates the combined value of all of a player’s actions on the pitch, we can be more granular if we want and break it down into distinct components of play: passing, dribbles and carries, shooting, defensive actions, and goalkeeping.

So, using these more specific OBV metrics, what emerges about the type of player Neymar is now and the reasons behind it?

Neymar the Playmaker?

Perhaps the most notable difference in Neymar at Santos is the positions he’s taking up. For most of career, he’s been an elite wide creator and finisher, nominally starting on the left and drifting into more central positions. But for Santos he has been operating much more centrally.

Neymar’s passing ability has long been a crucial weapon in his armoury and through Pass OBV we can see how he adds value through his incisive passing in this more traditional number 10 role.

During the Paulista, he has averaged 0.11 Pass OBV per 90, putting him in the 81st percentile of all players. When filtering down further to central midfielders and attacking midfielders, only Palmeiras’ Rafael Veiga has a higher Pass OBV (0.13).

Pass OBV is perhaps one of the few areas that doesn’t show a drop off from his Barcelona days, with only his first season (0.15 per 90) and last (0.12 per 90) posting marginally higher numbers.

Looking further at his key passes from the Paulista, we can see that most are coming from the left central position, while his two assists from corners demonstrate a creative threat from dead ball scenarios too.

Neymar also tops Santos for Open Play xG Assisted, Open Play Key Passes, and Open Play Passes into the Box, further fueling the image of Neymar the creator. And when comparing Neymar to the rest of the Paulista, we can see just how much of an outlier Neymar is.

This switch to a more central playmaker role could also have interesting implications for the national team. With Vinicius Junior’s place on the left of attack now undisputed and Brazil lacking deeper-lying midfield creators, could this be a way of Neymar mk II carving out a new role for himself in the Seleção?

Dribbling: Style and Substance

When you think of Neymar, the first image that comes to mind is his dazzling array of flicks and tricks. Whether it be the mohawked 2011 Neymar pulling off rainbow flicks or his slaloming solo goal against Croatia in 2022, his impudence and bravado represents everything great about the Joga Bonito traditionally associated with Brazilian football.

Given his particular set of skills, analyzing Neymar’s OBV from carries and dribbles merits further exploration to see whether the numbers stack up to the eye test.

Whereas before we judged this by looking at the volume and success rate of attempted dribbles, with Dribble & Carry OBV (D&C OBV) we can now assign credit based on whether the dribbles are moving the ball to high-value areas of the pitch or not. For example, a dribble that carries the ball from the touchline to the edge of the six-yard box will be credited more highly than one that is less penetrative.

So far at Santos, Neymar’s D&C OBV of 0.16 makes up the biggest proportion of his overall OBV and, compared to all players with at least 300 minutes in the Paulista, he ranks 5th for D&C OBV, with potential heir-in-waiting Estêvão topping the charts with 0.34.

Those numbers are backed up by an average of 2.20 successful dribbles per 90 (94th percentile in the Paulista), showing that, in a Brazilian context, Neymar is still a potent weapon with the ball at his feet.

This dribbling ability also has another function: winning set pieces. Neymar remains elite at winning fouls, with an average of 4.24 won per 90 during the Paulista - the highest of any player to have played 300 minutes or more.

Crucially, Neymar then has goalscoring prowess from these dead ball situations, as demonstrated by his quarter final free kick against RB Bragantino and his ‘Gol Olimpico’ against Inter de Limeira, as well as the aforementioned assists.

While his open play shooting has been more wayward, his ability to win set pieces from his dribbling and then score from them, could be a fruitful source of goalscoring opportunities for Santos.

But how does his D&C OBV compare to ‘peak Neymar’ at Barcelona? While his first couple of seasons were only slightly above his current numbers, we see a significant jump in his final two seasons.

In every season at Barcelona, bar 2014/15, Neymar ranked highest among his teammates for D&C OBV and in his final two seasons he topped the La Liga charts, demonstrating just how valuable his ball carrying was.

Neymar’s D&C OBV current numbers might not be as high as his Barcelona days, but the fact that he is now operating in more congested central areas for Santos is no doubt a contributing factor to this drop off and must be taken into account.

Conclusion

While it’s inevitable that over time the physical - and mental - fatigue will have changed Neymar as a player, there are still plenty of signs that there is still magic in those boots.

It’s too early to accurately jump to any firm conclusions, especially given the limited minutes and varied opposition he’s played, but with the help of metrics such as OBV, we can nevertheless make some initial observations:

Neymar’s On-Ball Value might not be as high as the player who first left Brazil but, in the context of two years of inactivity, he’s still able to provide a relatively high level of positive value for Santos.
Neymar’s positioning and passing numbers suggest the adoption of a more central playmaker role, leveraging his elite chance creation skills, both in open play and dead ball scenarios.
The intent to dribble is certainly still there and where he still brings most value, but there has been a drop off in his D&C OBV, no doubt due to the impact of injuries and the reduced space of his new role.
Nevertheless, his ability to draw and win fouls and then provide goals and assists from the subsequent set pieces will be a useful weapon for Santos as they look to re-establish themselves in Serie A.

Either way, it will be fascinating to see if Neymar’s return home can give him a new lease of life, help him to rediscover his passion for the game, and, who knows, perhaps earn one more shot at European football and reclaim an important role in the national team for a final shot at World Cup glory.

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