Time for Neymar to venture into the big bad wide world.

I’ll be honest, my interest in Brazilian football has been seriously waning in recent months what with the Olympics, the Euros and now the start of a new season in England. It probably also hasn’t helped that my apathy for the Brasileiro has often seemed to have been shared by a significant proportion of Brazilians as well. As a result, apart from catching games at Juventus I hadn’t been to watch one of São Paulo’s bigger teams since the end of March.

Palmeiras v Mirassol in the Paulista the last time I watched one of the big four in São Paulo.

Until last Saturday that is, when I broke my Brasileiro abstinence by paying a visit to the Pacaembu to watch Palmeiras and Santos.

Why?

Well, part of the appeal was the fact that it was a São Paulo ‘classico’. Additionally, my wife is genuinely a hardcore Palmeiras fan (unlike me) and we hadn’t been for a while so it felt like the perfect opportunity to watch her torture herself. But, for me personally, it was an opportunity to watch Neymar play.

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Is it just me or has no-one noticed that the Brasileiro has started?

Not all games are like this in Brazil.

After returning from Buenos Aires last weekend I spent all of Sunday moping around the house watching football. And boy was I treated, first with Spain v Italy and then Ireland v Croatia.

“And”, I thought, “there’ll probably be a Brasileiro game on afterwards as well. Get in!”

But, as I watched Gremio v Corinthians I realised that despite the modicum of interest that I have for Corinthians I really didn’t care that much. And the game really did drag.