Cafu: Neymar's entire career is questioned because of 30 minutes

Neymar didn't manage to live up to expectations in the 2018 World Cup, but Cafu has insisted that his career shouldn't be so harshly judged over one match.

The former Brazil right-back, however, admitted that the Paris Saint-Germain forward's performance during the tournament were below par.

"We all expected a lot from him, because Neymar is a fantastic player and we expected different things from him on the pitch," he said.

"That is normal and that is why the criticism has fallen on him for everything that happened.

"His performance wasn't what we expected, it was a little less than what people expect from a fantastic player.

"Neymar is the best Brazilian player of recent times, but because of 30 minutes we question everything that Neymar has done throughout his career.

"The World Cup is like that, it doesn't forgive, but he is smart and he will surely recover."

Cafu went on to back Tite's decision to rotate the team's captaincy and he praised the 57-year-old coach.

"At the start of the qualifiers no one claimed the captaincy," he added.

"We had a single person in charge, and that was Neymar, and Tite intelligently decided to delegate responsibilities and to involve everyone and immediately the national team grew.

"The World Cup is the consequence of all the work in the qualifiers and the friendlies, but unfortunately for 30 minutes the work of four years was lost.

"Everything is now in doubt, but Tite did a good job in three and a half years and his numbers are impressive."

Brazil will now look to recover and turn their attention to the 2019 Copa American, which they will host.