Neymar's Brazil form under scrutiny

France have shut out all the euphoria back home over their run to the World Cup final in order to play a perfect match against Croatia on Sunday, France captain Hugo Lloris said.

The goalkeeper said the team were not being swept up by the wave of celebrations back home and were keeping their focus firmly on their shot of earning a second World Cup title after 1998 when they take on the Croatians in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.

"To be honest we are in our little bubble and we don't know what is happening in France," Lloris told reporters on Saturday.

"We are far from thinking that we have reached our goal. We will face a high-quality opponent and they deserve as much credit as we do.

"They have displayed their physical and mental strengths and tomorrow we will need a great French team to win."

France have never needed to go beyond 90 minutes in their run to the final after beating Argentina in the round of 16, Uruguay in the last eight and Belgium in the semi-finals.

But Croatia had to battle from a goal down in all three of their knockout matches to beat Denmark, Russia and England.

They played extra time in all of them and needed penalties against the Danes and hosts Russia.

"Croatia have shown their mental strength which is quite incredible. They have managed to qualify after extra time three times in a row. There is something special in this team," Lloris warned.

"They also have an incredible collective strength. We have a lot of respect for them. We need to perform at a high level and deliver a perfect match to win," said the keeper.

France are in their third World Cup final after winning in 1998 and losing to Italy in 2006. They also reached the Euro final on home soil two years ago only to lose to Portugal.

Lloris said that defeat was not on their minds any longer, with many current players not part of the 2016 team.

"I think that our team is quite calm. I do not really know if we realise how far we have come but it is better that way," Lloris said. "We have this inner strength from the beginning of the tournament with which we can overcome any challenge."

"Tomorrow will be the most important match of our career. It will be a special match because it is a World Cup final and we have to stay in our bubble to focus on the ultimate goal."

As star footballers line up to take Saudi money, it is easy to forget this is a phenomenon that stretches back decades. Only now, the stakes are much, much higher.

Read about a Brazilian player being greeted by thousands of fans and whisked off in a Rolls-Royce to banquet with royalty, and Neymar springs to mind.

But this describes the arrival of Rivelino, who signed a lucrative contract with Al-Hilal in 1978 -- 45 years before Neymar, his modern-day equivalent, did the same this month.

"In addition to receiving a new Mercedes Benz and a reported $10,000-a-month living allowance, Rivelino will be housed in one of the spare palaces of Prince Khaled Al Saud," the Washington Post wrote at the time.

Similar luxuries -- adjusted to current prices -- are being lavished on Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and the other late-career superstars who have joined the Saudi Pro League this year.

This summer's transfer fees alone top $830 million, without counting the players' eye-watering wages, or Ronaldo's January signing in a deal which is said to net him 400 million euros over two-and-a-half years.

To suddenly spend at this scale and speed is unknown in football, and dwarfs Saudi's scattered acquisitions such as Rivelino, legendary coach Mario Zagallo, Roberto Donadoni and Hristo Stoichkov down the years.

More than vanity or "sportswashing" the country's highly criticised human rights record, however, the Saudi spree is part of an existential push: reshaping the economy before oil revenues decline.

"This project is part of a transformation project that's moving this country where it wants to go," Carlo Nohra, the Saudi Pro League's recently hired chief operating officer, told AFP.

'This is totally different' 

If Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is not new to spending big on footballers, things are very different this time around.

The current football project is part of Vision 2030, de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious drive to break Saudi's dependence on oil wealth.

"There was a push to bring big names" in the 1970s, Saleh al-Khalif, Al-Riyadiah newspaper's deputy editor-in-chief, told AFP.

"Rivo (Rivelino) came and some other Tunisian players who played well in World Cup 1978. But the experience was eventually a failure."

"It depended on the honour members of the clubs, not a government plan or spending," he said, referring to the royals bankrolling teams independently.

"It was not sustainable so it didn't survive. This is totally different from the current push."

These days, Saudi Arabia is investing hundreds of billions in everything from NEOM, a futuristic new city on the Red Sea, to tourist resorts and entertainment for the masses, including football.

The plan is to diversify sources of income for the desert country of 32 million, where two-thirds of the Saudi population is under 30 -- but time is of the essence.

OPEC, the oil cartel of which Saudi is a prominent member, has projected global consumption will peak around 2040, implying revenues will then flatten and decline.

"Saudi Arabia is up against the clock," Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Paris's Skema Business School, told AFP.

"Saudi Arabia has 20 years to diversify. In the meantime they're being exposed to oil-price fluctuations.

"They've got to move fast, they've got to move strategically, they've got to move effectively."

'Bread and circus' 

Packed crowds watching Ronaldo is quite a turnaround for a staunchly conservative country where women were banned from stadiums until 2019.

"Cynics will say what are the reasons behind it," said Ali Khalid, sports editor of Riyadh-based Arab News, pointing to talk of "sportswashing".

"But a lot of it is they're bringing to their people, who for a long time had no access to any entertainment of that level, they're bringing the best of it."

According to Nohra of the Saudi Pro League, "the main objective is how can we turn the sport into a sport that inspires, that engages, that entertains the Saudi people.

"That's what drives it."

But the investments in football, Formula One, golf and music festivals and more may be about more than encouraging people to spend, Chadwick said.

"At the heart of this I think is the security of the ruling family," said Chadwick.

"The investment in football, it's bread and circus for the 21st century.

"It's, 'Give the people what they want and hopefully they will leave you alone'. They won't question you, they'll support you."

Brazil star Neymar opened his account for Al Hilal finally on Tuesday, scoring in his side's 3-0 victory in the Asian Champions League against Iran's Nassaji Mazandaran in Tehran.

The former Paris Saint-Germain forward, signed in August for a reported 90 million euros ($94 million), grabbed the second in the record Asian champions' win at the Azadi Stadium.

The goal, a sweeping left-footed finish on 58 minutes, represented Neymar's first for Hilal in five matches. Former Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic had opened the scoring on 18 minutes with a header, with substitute Saleh Al Shehri securing the result in injury-time to lift the four-time winners, runners-up last year, top of Group D.

Navbahor, 2022 Uzbekistan Super League runners-up and Champions League debutants, had earlier on Tuesday secured a 3-0 win at home to India's Mumbai City in Namangan.

Both Hilal and Nassaji Mazandaran were forced to play the majority of the match in the Iranian capital with 10 men, after the Saudi side's captain Salman Al Faraj was sent off alongside Amir Houshmand seven minutes before half-time – both for violent conduct.

Hilal were playing in Iran less than 24 hours after compatriots Al Ittihad had refused to enter the pitch in their match against Sepahan in Isfahan because a bust of the slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani was on display at the entrance. The game was subsequently called off.

In Group A, 2003 winners Al Ain maintained their 100 percent record with a 4-2 home success against Turkmenistan's Ahal, while Saudi side Al Fayha ran out 2-0 winners at home to Uzbekistan's Pakhtakor. Al Ain of the UAE are top, three points ahead of Ahal and Fayha.

In the East Asian side of the draw, South Korea's Incheon United made it two wins from two in Group G with a 4-0 victory at home to Filipino side Kaya-FC Iloilo. Japanese champions Yokohama F Marinos are second in the group after rebounding from an opening defeat to Incheon by defeating Chinese side Shandong Taishan 1-0 on Tuesday.

In Group I, Japan's Kawasaki Frontale sit top following a 1-0 victory at home against South Korean champions, and 2020 Asian Champions League winners, Ulsan Hyundai. Malaysian club Johor Darul Ta'zim jumped into second with their 4-2 win away at Thailand's BG Pathum United.

The group stage, which this year returned to a home-and-away format for the first time since early 2020, runs until mid-December, with the 10 pool winners and the six best second-placed teams advancing to the knockout rounds. That begins in February. The final takes place, across two legs, in May.

The French finance and economy ministry was searched earlier this week as part of a probe into the 2017 transfer of Brazil football superstar Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain, a source said to AFP on Thursday.

Officers with anti-corruption units carried out the searches on Monday, amid suspicions that PSG may have received favourable tax treatment as part of the transfer, the source said.

Neymar joined Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in 2017 for a world-record fee of 222 million euros ($242 million), scoring 118 goals in 173 matches despite a series of injuries.

Last year he left the French club for Saudi Al-Hilal, the latest world-famous footballer snapped up by the big-spending Saudi Pro League.

He will earn 100 million euros a season in Saudi Arabia, according to a source close to the negotiations, while PSG will pocket 100 million euros in the deal.

Didier Deschamps proclaimed France’s second World Cup triumph was “just as beautiful” as their first after leading them to glory again 20 years on, but Croatia defender Dejan Lovren said that Deschamps' team "did not play football."

"I'm disappointed because we lost the game, we played much, much better football than them, but on the other hand I'm proud of this team and what we have achieved," Lovren said.

"We played beautiful football again. France were one of the favourites to win the World Cup and they did it. I think we were better. They did it another way. They didn't play football, they waited for their chances and they scored. They had their own tactic and you need to respect that. They played the tournament like that, every game, but when you look at all the countries behind us, we're second.” he added.

"There's nothing to talk about now. It's difficult to describe. Maybe after a week or two, a couple of months... right now, it's difficult. Some moments I feel sad, some moments I'm happy. Overall, I'm proud."

Ivan Perisic conceded the first-half penalty after referee Nestor Pitana penalised him for handball following a VAR review.

"I was sure he would not give the pen," said the Liverpool centre-back. "From my point of view, he [Perisic] could not react.

"It was a critical moment, we came back at 1-1, and then this penalty and then 3-1, 4-1, but even then we didn't stop playing football, we still believed, we gave everything, and this is why people are proud now in Croatia."

Didier Deschamps' side had claimed a 1-0 over Belgium in the semifinals with a defensive masterclass which left Belgium star Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois deeply unimpressed with what he felt were overly cagey tactics by France in the semi-final, and now Lovren also felt the frustration of coming up against Deschamps's style. Not always the most entertaining, however, in the end, French squad just had too much talent at its disposal to get the job done.