Laments last season
Messi and Neymar
Neymar has admitted that his spell with Leo Messi at Paris Saint-Germain was disappointing, that they had a bad time in Paris and that he knew the Argentine would leave the French club.
“I asked him. In the last few weeks I had doubts, and he told me. Messi has won everything. His family was very affected the last two years at PSG. I understand him and he is going to a place where he will be welcomed. He will live a completely different life and his family will feel very well in Miami. It was a good choice. They were difficult years together,” he said on streamer Casimiro’s YouTube show ‘Que Papinho’.
The Brazilian spoke about the disappointment of not having yet achieved the club’s great objective of winning Europe’s top competition. “Real Madrid’s galacticos didn’t win the Champions League. We had a strong team. Messi, Mbappe and I are the best in the world, we know that, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. We wanted to win everything but football is sometimes not fair. It’s not like the recipe for a cake,” he explained.
On the problems with the Parisian fans and his continuity at PSG, Neymar stressed that he is under contract and hopes to stay with the team: “So far no one has told me, I’m staying put. Even if there is not much love between the fans and the players, I will be there. Love or no love, but with Neymar.”
He thought about international retirement after the World Cup
One of the most revealing statements from the Brazilian star was his intention to quit the national team after losing in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Qatar against Croatia. “Honestly, I didn’t want to come back. I thought about it because I didn’t want to go through that pain of losing again and seeing my family suffering, but they’re going to have to put up with it again. It’s going to be fine, it has to be,” he said.
The Brazilian explained that he spent several days crying after the World Cup failure and told what the atmosphere was like in the Brazil dressing room: “It was like a funeral, one crying next to the other. It was horrible. It was a feeling I don’t want to go through again. I would rather not have scored. I would rather have been 0-0 and lost on penalties than to score, concede and then lose.
“It was one of the worst weeks of my life. Besides being injured, which nobody knew about, I was very sick. I did the treatment lying in bed, sleeping all day. I would put one foot on the floor and the physiotherapist would come to treat me. Marquinhos kept me company,” said Neymar, who has not played since 19 February when he suffered a right ankle injury in a PSG match. He underwent surgery in March and has recently been cleared for group training.