Neymar inherited his name from his father, who is a former footballer and became his son's advisor as Neymar's talents began to grow.

Growing up, he combined his love of futsal with street football.

Neymar began playing football at an early age and he was soon spotted by Santos FC. He was inducted into their youth academy, which has, in the past, produced Brazilian internationals like Coutinho, Clodoaldo, Diego, Elano and Alex.

Aged 14, Neymar travelled to Spain to join the Real Madrid youth team, at the time when Real had stars like Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Roberto Carlos and Robinho.

He has a very close sibling relationship with his sister Rafaella Beckran, and cemented this closeness by tattooing her face on his arm, while Beckran tattooed her brothers eyes on her arm.

Neymar is a Christian. He has spoken about his faith saying, "Life only makes sense when our highest ideal is to serve Christ!".