The master Ronaldo against the pretender Neymar
D4
Min this season’s group stage and his next goal will be his 100th in the competition for Real.
Neymar’s first six months in France have at times been overshadowed by reports of an uneasy relationship with Edinson Cavani, the other idol at PSG and the club’s alltime record goal-scorer.
Doubts are still raised about how much the French scene motivates him, too.
Last week he sat out a French Cup tie at Sochaux, just 48 hours after hosting a lavish party for his 26th birthday near Paris’ Place Vendome.
But Neymar can almost do and say what he wants, as long as his performances on the field satisfy PSG’s Qatari owners after they invested a world- record 222 million euros ($264 million) to sign him.
And he is delivering on the pitch, scoring a goal a game in a Paris shirt.
“We have lots of great players, but our leader on the pitch is Neymar,” said PSG coach Unai Emery recently. In France, persistent speculation about a potential Real bid to sign Neymar, possibly as early as this year, has been seen as an attempt to unsettle PSG ahead of this tie.
“Would Neymar fit at Real Madrid? He would fit, for sure,” Real’s Marcelo, a Brazil team- mate of Neymar, told Brazilian channel Esporte Interativo.
“I think Neymar will one day play for Real Madrid.”
PSG signed Neymar after he masterminded Barcelona’s incredible 61 win when the teams met in the Champions League last season. It is not too big a stretch to imagine Real doing something similar should Neymar oversee their downfall. He will surely not be at PSG forever, and Madrid president Florentino Perez cannot wait too much longer to sign another global superstar, and a successor to Ronaldo. “I hope Neymar will stay. He still has a lot of things to achieve with us,” PSG skipper Thiago Silva told Canal.