Meet the little Neymar of Bengaluru

If you go to the back streets of some part of Vivek Nagar in Bengaluru and ask to see Neymar, the odds are that people won’t laugh at you. Instead, they will point you to the house of a cabbie and his homemaker wife, where, if you are lucky, you can see a three year old with a familiar hairstyle practicing step-overs and Rabonas..

Three-year-old Raju Neymar is a household name these days in the Vivek Nagar area, and he is getting more and more famous as interest in the World Cup moves towards fever pitch. Little Raju’s passion for the game led his father to attach the Samba superstar’s name to his much more conventional Indian moniker. The name stuck after he participated in a local football camp in the summer with a mohawk hairdo like the real Neymar.

“Raju is crazy about football and a diehard fan of Neymar. He loves watching videos of the Brazilian team in action more than cartoons on television. He was watching the Brazil vs Costa Rica match on Friday evening and when Neymar scored a goal in added time, Raju was jumping in joy in front of the TV,” say B.Dinadayal, a local football coach training the little Neymar of Bengaluru.


When we met Raju Neymar for this interview, he walked out on to the ground near his home in full gear with a number 10 jersey reading Raju Neymar. A crowd had gathered to see their locality’s little football star demonstrate his skills. He did not disappoint, much to the assembled crowd’s delight

“I love Neymar and I want to meet him,” said Raju Neymar before running away with the football.

Three-year-old Raju Neymar is a household name these days in the Vivek Nagar area in Bengaluru, and he is getting more and more famous as interest in the World Cup moves towards fever pitch