SAMARA, Russia — Alarm bells rang inside Jim Calder’s brain earlier this week as he watched Neymar, the Brazilian soccer superstar, squirm on the grass and cry out in apparent distress.

“Neymar does what all beginning actors do,” he said. “They oversell the event.”

Calder would know. For three decades he has taught acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His voice has been consistently hoarse this summer, a consequence of yelling at students all day at a theater workshop he runs every year in Florence, Italy. Yet when the classes have ended, when he turns on the television to watch the World Cup at night, he continues to have his thespian tastes affronted.

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The same thing happens every four years: On the biggest stage in sports, some of the world’s best soccer talents reveal themselves to be D-list actors. They pantomime pain. They exaggerate like silent film stars. They don’t seem to care who sees.