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Neymar hopes Lionel Messi will be his teammate at Paris St-Germain next season
Neymar caused a stir when he said he wants to play with Lionel Messi again next season, moments after helping Paris St-Germain win the Champions League 3-1 over Manchester United.
“What I want most is to play with Messi again, to be able to enjoy him on the pitch again,” Neymar told ESPNexternal-link about his former teammate at Barcelona.
“He can play in my place, I have no problem with that! But I want to play with him next year, for sure. We have to do it next season.”
That revelation came when Barcelona’s interim president Carlos Tusquets said the club should have sold Messi in the summer.
The 33-year-old Argentine forward Messi told Barça that he wanted to leave at the time, and said a clause in his contract meant he could do so for free.
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Barça said that was not the case and that they would not let their top scorer and captain of all time walk away for less than his 700 million euro (624 million pound) buyout clause.
His contract expires next summer when he will be free to leave.
Josep Maria Bartomeu resigned as president in October, and Tusquets took office temporarily until the January elections.
“Economically speaking, he would have sold Messi in the summer window,” Tusquets told RAC1 radio station.
“Both in terms of what you save on the salary bill and the money you make, it would have been desirable. But this is something that the coaching staff has to accept and that is not my place.”
Messi’s contract expires next summer and Spanish soccer journalist Guillem Balague, speaking on the BBC Football Daily podcast, says he still wants to leave the club.
So is there a PSG play on the cards?
Selling Mbappé, freeing Di María and signing Messi: Barcelona is seventh in La Liga, 10 points behind, after nine games having lost a third of their games.
French soccer journalist Julien Laurens says the “greatest paradox of all” is that Neymar “somehow left Barcelona to avoid being in Messi’s shadow and now he’s almost begging for them to play together.”
Brazilian international Neymar left Barça for PSG in 2017 for a world record of £ 200 million, despite the Spanish club not wanting to sell it. The belief at the time was that he wanted to step out of Messi’s shadow and be the leading man in another team, which would allow him to win the Champions League and Ballons d’Or.
But he has achieved none of that success and publicly tried to rejoin Barcelona last summer.
Laurens says this situation is different now.
“The question they asked you is important, ‘Would you like Messi to join you in Paris?’ So it’s not Neymar who says he wants to play with Messi and that they could go anywhere, “he said.
Laurens believes they would have to sell 21-year-old French striker Kylian Mbappé and let 32-year-old Angel di Maria leave to pay Messi.
“Financially you cannot have Messi, Neymar, Mbappé,” he said. “It’s impossible. I’m not sure you can have Messi, Neymar and Di María, who is out of contract at the end of the season. So maybe let Di María go, sell Mbappé to Real Madrid and then bring in Messi “.
“But there are a lot of financial figures, financial fair play, that would have to work. But many people in Paris are beginning to dream.
“I think that if Neymar asks the owners to sit down and listen to him, he will. There is still a long way to go.”
‘Turning towards Messi and Neymar at PSG’
Joan Laporta and Victor Font, the two favorites to be president of Barcelona, say they want to retain Messi.
“Messi is not waiting for the new president,” said Balague, who had previously said that Messi could go to Manchester City.
“The new president will have to convince Messi to stay. He left a clear message: he wanted to leave. He wants to leave.
Neymar has a year and a half left on his contract, so removing him from PSG to join Messi at Manchester City, Juventus, Inter Milan or Chelsea would be practically impossible.
“Next summer Real Madrid will try to convince Mbappé to leave so that there will be a big difference.
“It seems to me that we are heading for Messi to join Neymar at PSG, which is interesting.
“In many ways, PSG is a perfect fit. Paris is a place where he could be himself, there are many Spanish-speaking players at the club. They have the ability to win and challenge. It is impossible for Barcelona to challenge to the top.” .
He says Neymar and Messi had been trying to bond again a year after his departure.
“They trained very hard to work together,” he said. “In the first year he tried to convince Barcelona of ‘would you accept me?’ The answer was no, there were still pending court cases between the club and him.
“A year and a half ago when they tried to sign him, Messi told Neymar ‘in two or three years I will go anyway and then you can be the star of the team but we will have a couple of years together.’
“Neymar gave Barcelona the green light to make it look like they were trying to catch him. Almost every year it happens.”
Source: bbc.com
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