While Neymar would prefer to see his football being talked about during the FIFA World Cup, it has been the number of times the Brazilian forward has gone down to the ground in pain that has received much of attention.
While some have accused him of excessive theatrics, others have ridiculed him as a diving diva. His exaggerated reactions have also led to a Twitter trend — #NeymarRolls — which has become an internet sensation, generating plenty of GIFs and memes.
A Switzerland radio station, Radio Television Suisse , tallied up the amount of time spent by Neymar on the ground after he was brought down by opposition players. Of the 360 minutes of football Brazil has played so far, Neymar has been down on the floor for close to 14 minutes!
During the match against Mexico, Neymar rolled around for nearly two minutes by clutching his leg after Miguel Layun 'stepped' on him. After Mexico crashed out in the Round-of-16 stage, its coach Juan Carlos Osorio blamed the referee for pandering to the forward's theatrics.
“I think it's a shame for football,” said Osorio. “We wasted a lot of time because of one single player... we lost our style in the second half, because of the referee."
A Rio di Janerio bar has invented a new drinking game at Neymar's expense: free shots every time Neymar goes down to the floor for the match against Serbia.
And he obliged, too. His exaggerated roll in the match was more talked about on Twitter than Brazil's qualification to the knockout stages with a 2-0 win. He count of eight rolls have supposedly earned him an unofficial World record for the most number of rolls, beating the stunt from Casino Royale where Daniel Craig's (James Bond) car went spiralling seven times.
A multinational brand also took inspiration from the new-found internet sensation, i.e, #NeymarRolls.
In the last few days, Tamil Nadu's iconic yesteryear actor Sivaji Ganesan has also come to have found a link to the Brazilian footballer.
Here are some more funny reactions that continue to 'roll' in:
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