For the first time in the Confederations Cup, Neymar ended up not scoring a goal, but he did deliver the corner cross to the winning goal by Paulinho. On the way he added another embarrassing and theatrical dive to his resume, while showing a little bit of the ‘bad boy’ in him by sending a sarcastic kiss towards Alvaro Gonzalez.
Brazil clinched their spot in the tournament final with a 2-1 win over Uruguay in a match they mostly dominated, but still struggled through with a tough and hard working Uruguay team, that pressed well in the midfiled to stop Brazil’s flowing passing game from getting too many breaks.
The aggression levels of the match where usually kept in check, but at moments did seem to get slightly out of hand on both sides, as animosity runs deep in this clash. Neymar had a little scuffle near the end with Walter Gargano, clinging on to his back. As the Uruguayan midfielder made his turn, Neymar decided to get something out of the situation, and flew into the air like he was hit with a Sagat uppercut.
However, not everything Neymar did on the day was bad, even if it had nothing to do with football. Two minutes before he crossed the winner to Paulinho, Neymar had a little argument going on with Alvaro Gonzalez, who tried to be in his face the entire match. As Gonzalez was walking away, Neymar blew him a little kiss just to further get under his skin. It didn’t have any effect on the following play, but winning and getting your opponent’s blood all boiled up is a good way to finish a match with a serious rival.