5 of the best footballers and their one glaring weakness

FC Barcelona v Real Madrid CF - La Liga
Messi blasts past Marcelo using his right foot - a rare sight

#2 Neymar – Heading

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Brazil v South Africa: Men's Football - Olympics: Day -1
Neymar gives the perfect 'I am not sure how to do this' expression here

Aesthetic and football are basically synonyms. At its best, football has the ability to make people forget about all their worries for some time – which is a great strength in itself. And at its worst, well… it still keeps the ability to make one forget about their problems.

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In this world, it is mostly always about us. How we feel, our problems, our complexities, our dreams... in such a self-centered world, when something can actually make you forget about you, it has to be something special.

Football does that to you and players like Neymar help the cause the most. When he runs with the ball with full pace, taking out defenders one-by-one like they were dust on his shoulders, it feels like he is a Greek warrior of olden days vanquishing his enemies single-handedly.

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Give the ball at his feet, he will do magic. However, give the ball at his head – and he needs magic. And that is something that irks even the great Pele.

"Neymar is a good player, but how many goals has he scored with his head in his life?" Pele told Placar.

"He is an excellent player, but Vasconcelos, my team-mate at Santos, was 10 times better than Neymar, without any doubt."

Pele has a tendency to exaggerate, so I will skip the Vasconcelos part. However, for someone who is 5’9”, he doesn’t seem to have a great heading technique. Messi, despite being shorter, is actually a good header of the ball – something that can’t be opined on Neymar.

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Edited by Sankalp Srivastava
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