Neymar's 8 Watches for the 2022 World Cup

Before the boots. Before the training kit. Before anything else.

When Neymar sat down to pack for the Qatar World Cup, the first thing he went for was the watch case. "Deixa eu escolher o relógio agora" — let me pick the watch now. He said it like a man who has his priorities straight.

And then he picked eight of them.

Eight watches for one tournament. That tells you something about the man before you even see what's inside the case.

Why eight? He explains it immediately, and the logic is actually clean: you can repeat a watch if you need to. "Dá pra repetir" — you can repeat, as long as nothing goes wrong.

So eight covers the group stage, the knockouts, and the final, with room to double up. It's not excess for the sake of it. It's a rotation.

All eight are from the Richard Mille collection. That's not a surprise — Neymar has been one of their most visible ambassadors for years. Richard Mille makes watches that cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million. They're light, they're recognizable, and they photograph well on a wrist during a goal celebration. That last part matters when you're Neymar.

There's a moment about 22 seconds in where he picks up one watch and doesn't hesitate. "Esse era o primeiro, eu já olhei e esse é o primeiro" — this was always the first one, I already knew it when I looked at it.

That kind of certainty is interesting. He's not browsing. He came in with a mental ranking and he's just confirming it out loud.

He also picks one out specifically for the final. "Esse pode ser o da final" — this one could be the final watch. A watch pre-assigned to a game Brazil hadn't played yet. Confidence is a mild word for it.

You can see his full playing record and career stats on Transfermarkt — but the watch selection ritual is a side of him you won't find in any stats table.

One of the watches stops him mid-selection. Green, green, green, and yellow — the colors of Brazil's Qatar 2022 kit. He says it out loud, pleased: "Verde, verde, verde, verde e amarelo aqui ó, que beleza." Green, green, green, green and yellow — beautiful.

That one was always going in the case.

Then he picks up another and pauses: "Muito brilho, eu tenho muito brilho já" — too much shine, I've already got a lot of shine. Even with eight watches, there's a curation happening. You don't put two blinding pieces in the same rotation. There's a logic to it.

The last one he picks up gets a simple verdict: "Esse é o melhor" — this is the best one.

That watch is the Tiger Eye RM — a Richard Mille RM 036 Tourbillon with a tiger eye stone dial. It's one of the rarer pieces in the RM catalogue. The kind of watch that doesn't show up in many collections.

He saves it for last and calls it the best. That's the close of the selection. Eight watches, case shut.

The whole thing takes 45 seconds.

A footballer packing watches for a World Cup is a content moment. Fine. But there's something real underneath it.

Neymar isn't picking watches because someone told him to. He has a first pick already decided before he sits down. He has a finals watch. He has a color logic. He knows when something has too much shine for the rotation.

That's not a man who wears watches because they're expensive. That's someone who actually thinks about them.

You can argue about whether eight watches for one tournament is too many. But you can't argue he doesn't know what he's doing with them.