Neymar silences critics to star in Barcelona's greatest win ever

It’s already been described as one of the greatest games of all time, as Barcelona came back from a 4-0 first leg deficit to stun PSG and the watching world. The match will without question go down in history, and with it so too will the undisputed star of the show.

Neymar has faced his fair share of critics this season, even from some sections of the Twitter-bound Barca support, but it’s fair to say much of that criticism has been unwarranted. The Brazilian has risen above it it recent weeks and months to play some of his best football for the club, culminating in what he described as "the best game I have played in my life”.

While he didn’t have a telling impact in terms of goals until the dying stages, Neymar was Barcelona’s biggest threat for the entirety of the game, upstaging the likes of Messi and Suarez in a match that will go down in history as perhaps the blaugrana’s greatest ever win. Indeed, even before his stunning free-kick with two minutes of the 90 to spare, the 25-year old was the highest rated player on the pitch (7.78). A quite remarkable end to the game saw Neymar almost single-handedly inspire arguably the greatest comeback of all time.

Click to view the full stats and ratings from the Barcelona-PSG match centre

He was comfortably the most involved player on the night, with a total of 109 touches not only the most on the pitch but 41 and 76 clear of Messi and Suarez respectively. While the duo were underwhelming by their standards, with PSG attempting to limit space in the middle of the pitch, Neymar profited out wide and stepped up to run the show.

Six shots and four dribbles were both game-highs, while only Rafinha made more tackles for the hosts. The fact that PSG struggled all night to deal with his threat was summed up by the fact that the Brazil international was fouled 8 times, the joint most of any player in a Champions League match this season.

He would end the game with a perfect WhoScored.com rating of 10, confidently stepping up to score a penalty before delivering the sort of assist that such a dramatic decisive goal deserved. While he has struggled in front of goal in general this season, his creativity has certainly never been called into question, with the chipped ball into the path of Sergi Roberto his eighth assist in the Champions League alone.

That’s three more than any other this season and the most of any player in a single Champions League campaign, usurping Ibrahimovic (7) in 2011/12. When you consider that Barcelona could conceivably have another five games to play in the competition yet, one wouldn’t bet against him reaching double figures and setting a record that could prove almost as implausible to beat as the Catalans chances of progressing last night.

When you combine that assist tally with another 8 in La Liga, Neymar now has at least two more than any other player in Europe’s major leagues and European competition combined. That would suggest that the stick that the forward has faced has been unjust, with opinions generally divided as to just how well or poorly he has performed this season.

There are those that will look to a modest goal return of 12 across the league and Champions League combined - half of which have come since the turn of the year - and compare it with the exploits of Messi and Suarez. Then, there are those that are more appreciative of Neymar’s development into a team player rather than a luxury one, suggesting that this - despite a drop in goals scored - has been the Brazilian’s best season in Spain.

The statistics certainly support the latter assumption, and when you factor in 16 assists the trickster has had a direct hand in more goals (28) than he has played games across the league and Champions League (27). To compare him to Messi or Suarez in general would be harsh anyway considering the system that Enrique deploys, and while it is generally a front three, it’s certainly a lop-sided one.

A look at the heat maps from La Liga this season highlight just how different Neymar’s role is to his fellow forwards, with Messi drifting in from the right to support Suarez and the Brazilian generally staying wide to provide for the two of them. While his conversion rate of 11.3% in the league is certainly underwhelming, he doesn’t find himself in the box or in clear goalscoring positions as often. He doesn’t need to.

Just 44 of Neymar’s shots in Spain’s top-flight have been in the penalty area compared to 63 from Suarez and 67 from Messi. While Suarez has had 23 clear cut chances in La Liga this season, Neymar has had 14 by comparison.

In terms of his all round attacking play, however, few could doubt Neymar’s influence on this Barcelona side. He leads the way for key passes per game (2.9) with a figure that only Jonathan Viera can better in all of La Liga. He’s top of the pile in Spain for dribbles, meanwhile, and by a huge margin to boot. An average of 5.4 per game is well ahead of Messi (3.1) in second and highlights just how effective he is at beating his man and offering variety to the Barcelona attack when their passing moves aren’t bearing fruit.

His tackles per game average is also at its highest in his career, and the work rate and defensive contribution he offers is often lost in a perceived party-boy persona. While Luis Suarez is generally considered as the most combative of Barcelona’s famous front three, in the current system that couldn’t be further from the truth.

While the Uruguayan certainly covers the ground up front very little is asked of him in terms of regaining possession. Indeed, a meagre 0.3 tackles and 0.1 interceptions per game highlight just how much his game has changed this season, and certainly since his time at Liverpool, where he never averaged fewer than one tackle per game. Neymar, meanwhile, has seen his personal tackles figure almost double from 0.8 last season to 1.5 this as he shows admirable industry and discipline on the left.

It certainly marks a maturity to his game that was perhaps questioned in the past as Neymar begins to develop into a more complete player, perhaps to the detriment of his goal return. The good of the team comes first and while Barcelona have benefitted of late in particular, there can be no doubt as to who their star man was in midweek. Neymar’s match-winning performance will rightly go down in both the club’s and the Champions League’s history.