Neymar's Barcelona debut - Who were his teammates?

In 2013, Neymar moved away from Brazil for the first time in his career and joined Spanish giants FC Barcelona from Santos where he had spent the first four seasons of his professional career.

The Brazilian forward made his debut for the Catalan giants on August 18, 2013, in a La Liga tie where he came on as a substitute. Neymar replaced Alexis Sanchez in the 64th minute of the match which Barcelona had won 7-0. Lionel Messi and Pedro Rodriguez scored a brace while Dani Alves, Xavi Hernandez and Alexis Sanchez were also on target.

Neymar went on to play for Barcelona for four seasons representing the club in 186 matches in all competitions where he scored 105 goals. He won eight trophies which include two La Ligas and a Champions League title. He was also an integral part of Barcelona's treble-winning side of 2014/15.

Here, we take a look at the players who played alongside Neymar in his debut for Barcelona and where are they now?

A Barcelona academy product, Victor Valdes played for the club for 12 years from 2002 to 2014 after which he joined Manchester United. During the 2015-16 season, Valdes was sent on loan to Belgian side Standard Liege. In 2017, Valdes retired from professional football after playing a year at Middlesbrough.

In 2018, Valdes completed his UEFA Pro Licence and joined a local Madrid club ED Moratalaz's youth team. In 2019, he returned to Barcelona and took charge of the club's Juvenil A side as their head coach. Since 2020, he is managing a local Barcelona club UA Horta.

One of the greatest players to have donned the Barcelona shirt, Xavi Hernandez was the most-capped Barcelona player with 767 appearances until February 2021 when his former teammate Lionel Messi broke the record.

After leaving Barcelona in 2015 where he has been playing since 1998, the Spaniard joined Qatari club Al Sadd where he spent the final four seasons of his professional career. Upon retirement in 2019, he took over as the head coach of Al Sadd.