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Neymar Jr., the Pharaoh of football, has officially entered the world of monsters dueling, becoming a unique card as part of a new video game collaboration between eFootball and Yu-Gi-Oh!, the anime that is loved worldwide. The player from Brazil said he was excited and he was a viewer of the program during his childhood and now he can play a character of the series as a hero.
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He posted a video on his social media thanking the game maker Konami. He is shown in the video receiving and opening the special card. Already typed ‘Thank you Konami!!’, in the accompanying post, and also the hashtag #eFootballYuGiOhCollab. He claimed it was a dream to be a character in a cartoon that he always watched and he even found it ‘amazing’ to be a hero. This partnership is a drastic crossover that merges worldwide soccer and Japanese pop culture.
The unveiling of the collaboration came with various reactions, and many people expressed only their envy of the bizarre alliance. One comment said, ‘I envy you, I swear Konami, make one for me too’, and this shows how highly wanted that kind of a personal collectible is. The overall mood was one of great acknowledgment of the athlete’s receiving a very rare privilege.
The public reacted to the news humorously, and some people even made jokes about Neymar Jr.’s injuries, which are widely publicized. One user invented an interesting power for the card, stating, ‘The most dangerous card. If you put it in battle, it’s you who ends up not playing for 10 turns because of injury. Brutal.’ The next person continued with the joke telling, ‘They created the ‘Revive Neymar’ card. Insert the card into the game and then your team has one player less,’ which was a playful reference to the player’s frequent unavailability due to recovery.
Thank you @Konami !!
eFootball x Yu-Gi-Oh!#eFootballYuGiOhCollab pic.twitter.com/hwN4gHTfUd
— Neymar Jr (@neymarjr) October 29, 2025
Among the jokes and congratulations, critical comments started to appear and one advised the player to shift his attention back to the pitch. It was written, ‘Less partnerships, more football, boss. I love you, please come back, I believe in you.’ This comment reflects a segment of his fanbase that is impatient to see him back to his best in the game, especially with the 2026 World Cup just around the corner. Another supporter went as far as to state, ‘You have to go to the World Cup!!!!’ thus conveying the huge expectations that the player’s fan base has for him.
The collaboration was considered an event through which both the gaming and anime communities benefited mutually. One user quite rightly said, ‘Yu-Gi-Oh and eFootball unite’, while another just called the news ‘Lit’. The crossover is perceived as an intentional decision to attract fans from different entertainment industries, using Neymar Jr.’s global star power to lure both sports simulation and trading card game lovers together.
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For Neymar Jr. this collaboration is an addition to the already large portfolio of endorsements and partnerships outside of soccer. It reaffirms his status as a global icon whose power reaches all the way to the non-sporting world. The eFootball x Yu-Gi-Oh! collaboration is a resurrection of both the sportsman’s and the anime’s fans’ longing to experience nostalgic feelings and contemporary gaming through the manufacturing of a very rare piece of memorabilia. Sport stars are claiming new and sometimes unexpected ways of preserving their images by making their brands digital and merging them with pop culture, which is the case here again.