Brazilian star Philippe Coutinho has joined Santos until the end of the season, reuniting for the first time at club level with his close friend and Brazil national team teammate Neymar.
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The former Liverpool and Barcelona midfielder, 34, had been without a club since leaving Vasco da Gama last February.
Coutinho had returned to his childhood club, Vasco da Gama, in 2024, but left after playing 81 matches with the team, explaining at the time that he had become "mentally exhausted."
Santos celebrated the arrival of their new player in a special way through their social media accounts, posting an old photo of Coutinho and Neymar together as teenagers, alongside a new photo in which the two Brazilian stars recreated the same pose inside the gym.
The club also posted a video showing Coutinho entering the locker room, where Neymar welcomed him with a hug, before the new signing expressed his great happiness at the moment, saying: "If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up."
Neymar had returned to Santos, the club where he began his career, in January of last year, and this will be the first time the two friends play together at club level, despite their long history together with the Brazilian national team.
Coutinho has had a storied career on European pitches, having begun his professional journey with Vasco da Gama, before moving to Italy's Inter Milan, then embarking on the most notable chapter of his career when he joined Liverpool in 2013.
Coutinho shone in the English club's shirt, scoring 54 goals in 201 matches, before moving to Barcelona in 2018 for 142 million pounds sterling.
However, his time with the Catalan club did not go as hoped, and he subsequently had spells with Bayern Munich, Aston Villa, and Qatar's Al-Duhail, before returning to Vasco da Gama in 2024.
Resource: Al Ghad.
