Is Neymar Really Going to be a Star?

Neymar is the newest Brazilian starlet that is said to be a star of the future. With blistering pace, superb finishing and dazzling dribbling skills, he is likened to be the next Robinho. Chelsea are said to have made a bid of 25 million euros, which is a lot of money for anyone to refuse for an 18 year old. But disregard the rising transfer fees, the media, and the overall craze to find the next best thing. Is Neymar really worth 25 million euros? To answer this question let's take a look back history for other great "wonderkids" that had millions spent on them. 

Wayne Rooney 25.6 million pounds (31.24 million euros)

Everton --> Manchester United

Antonio Cassano 30 million euros

Bari --> Roma

Sergio Ramos 27 million euros

Sevilla --> Real Madrid

Denilson 21.5 million pounds (26.235 euros)

Sao paulo --> Real Betis

Sergio Aguero 23 million euros

Independiente --> Athletico madrid

Alexandre Pato 22 million euros

Internacional --> AC Milan

Anderson approximately 18 million pounds (21.965 million euros)

Porto --> Manchester United

Javier Saviola 15 million pounds (18.304 million euros)

River Plate --> Barcelona

Cristiano Ronaldo 12.24 million pounds (14.937 million euros)

Sporting Lisbon --> Manchester United

Breno 12 Million euros

Sao Paulo --> Bayern Munich

* By no means is this a complete list (no numbering is used), so there may be players that I could be missing. Please let me know if I missed anything so I could include it into my analysis.

* Mario Balotelli was not included because he turned 20 on the day the transfer went through.

All statistics are taken from Wikipedia. Help support open source information!!! Donate Here.

So lets make this easy, pick the most important players and the worst players and work our way in.

So out of the ten players in the list, only three of them are absolute stars. When I say stars, I mean that these players are irreplaceable. They are easily identifiable in terms of fame and on the pitch. Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero, and Cristiano Ronaldo all fit those bill.

So we got the best players, how about the worst. The only two that stick out from the list are Denilson and Javier Saviola. Denilson is a sad case. He has remarkable talent. Can always do the spectacular. But his usually means having tonnes of flair without much end product. Its funny that Real Betis are the only team that spent more than 20 million pounds on a teenager which didn't work out (Sucks to be Real Betis fan, haha). Javier Saviola on the other hand was not too bad. He is just too inconsistent. He's had a couple bad seasons at Monaco, Sevilla, and Real Madrid but seems to be getting his career back on track at Benfica.

So now is the hard part as we have to figure out all the players that fit in-between the flops and stars.

We haven't seen too much of Breno play for Bayern Munich and defenders usually take a couple years longer than other outfield players to develop so the jury is still out. But be sure to catch him this year as rumour has it that he may being playing a bigger role at Bayern Munich this season then previous years.

Anderson is grooming to be the heir to the ginger maestro (Paul Scholes) and has at times justified his value. He is still very young so let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he will be the player that we expect him to be.

With deep regret I have to say that Antonio Cassano, Alexandre Pato, and Sergio Ramos just fall short of star status. They are all fantastic footballers and very essential to their respective teams but not irreplaceable. Bring in Wayne Rooney, David Villa, Ibrahimovic in place of Cassano and Pato. Maicon and Daniel Alves are both great alternatives to Sergio Ramos. But this does not mean they are absolutely vital to the team as the other three players stars that we named. Cassano has been stellar at Sampdoria but Adrian Mutu also had a revival at the club. He also has god given knack for causing trouble at any club he plays for. Outstanding really. Alexandre Pato did have some good performances for AC, but without the renaissance of Ronaldinho, the introduction of Ibrahimovic and Robinho, he has not been under the magnifying glass. And Sergio Ramos is surrounded by stars so we cannot say for sure his impact is as great or greater than someone else on the team.

So out of the ten players we have taken a look at. Three of them are essential to their clubs, Two have been flops but maybe after this year we can probably reduce that to one and five of them we still need to give them time. So if clubs are willing to pay 25 million for Neymar, more than likely he will be worth that amount of money one day. When clubs buy a young player, they don't pay the transfer fee believing that he is worth the amount currently but rather he will be worth that amount at some in the future. When in the future will that, thats anyones guess but from what we can see it is almost certain that day will come.

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Thanks for reading, my name is Tasvir Khalili. I do freelance sports journalism. If your looking for a guest blogger, adding a new journalist, or any other opportunities please feel free to drop me a line at tasvir [dot] khalili [at] gmail [dot] com. (Don't spam me or I'll kill you... or try to kill you)