Philippe Coutinho Reunites with Neymar at Santos FC

Philippe Coutinho has reunited with close friend and Brazil team-mate Neymar at Santos FC, signing a deal until the end of the season.

The 34-year-old playmaker has been without a club since leaving Vasco da Gama in February. He had returned to his boyhood side in 2024 and made 81 appearances before walking away, admitting he was “tired mentally”.

Now comes a different kind of homecoming.

Santos announced the move with a heavy dose of nostalgia on social media, posting an old photograph of Coutinho and Neymar as teenagers alongside a new shot of the pair recreating the pose in the club gym. The club followed it with a behind-the-scenes video of Coutinho entering the dressing room, where Neymar greets him with a hug. Coutinho’s words in that moment – “if it’s a dream, I don’t want to wake up” – underlined what this return means to him.

Neymar rejoined Santos, the club where he first exploded onto the world stage, in January last year. Despite years together with Brazil, this will be the first time the two friends line up side by side in the same club shirt.

For Coutinho, it adds another chapter to a winding career. He came through at Vasco before moving to Inter Milan, then truly ignited at Liverpool from 2013, scoring 54 goals in 201 games and earning a £142m transfer to Barcelona in 2018. Spells at Bayern Munich, Aston Villa and Al-Duhail followed, before his short-lived return to Vasco.

Now he steps into a Santos dressing room led by Neymar, not as the next big thing, but as a veteran playmaker with one more stage to light up.