‘WE JUST HAVE TO CARRY OUR CLUB-FORMS TO QATAR’
“We are playing for our clubs and we shall not get more days with the national team. But on the other side, we all are among games, real matches,” says Neymar.
Juan Zuniga of Colombia had fouled him from behind to cut-short his appearance during the 2014 World Cup quarter final. Neymar Jr reached Russia four years later, returning from yet another injury. This time in Qatar, he is expected to reach fully fit and ready to fire on all cylinders. The last hoorah for Brazil in a World Cup was in 2002, exactly 20 years ago in Asia. Now the World Cup is coming back to the continent once again. Can Brazil repeat their feat?
Well, that will be confirmed in December only! What I can tell you is, the team members are ready to give their best on the field. Brazil had always taken the field with the only intention to win it. That will not change. But this is a game and you cannot always be the ultimate winner. However, we are ready for the quadrennial celebration.
How difficult will it be to play the World Cup when the club football season is going on in full swing?
It has nothing to do with the schedule. It’s in Qatar and you just cannot have a World Cup there in June-july. So, it was known to all of us from the day the Word Cup was given to Qatar that we would have to play in November-december. Yes, we are playing for our clubs and we shall not get more days with the national team. But on the other side, we all are among games, real matches. We just have to carry our club-forms to Qatar.
But there will be little time with your teammates to adjust…
True, but that’s what international matches are now. We don’t get too many days to prepare for a particular tournament nowadays and that’s applicable for every team and individual. When it happens in June-july, we assemble for two weeks before the tournament, but that comes at the end of a long and tiresome season of club football.
You shall be facing two European teams — Serbia and Switzerland — in the group and the third country Cameroon is from Africa. A tough group, definitely.
Yes, it’s always tough in World Cup. We get the chance to play against these teams only in a World Cup which is one of the charms of the tournament.
France in 2006, the Netherlands in 2010, Germany (2014) and Belgium in 2018 — Brazil has lost to European teams only in the knockout rounds of the previous four editions. What goes wrong when you face a European nation?
It happened so. Maybe we have to rethink and play better the next time we face a team
from Europe. However, we are not that worried. Except the match against Germany in the 2014 semifinal, we did play well in all those three matches, but failed to score even after creating enough chances. I know it very well that creating goal-scoring opportunities and actually converting our chances are completely different. We could not and that is the reason we were out of the World Cup thrice. We have to make sure that the same is not repeated.
Tite will be your coach in the second World Cup on the trot. How helpful that would be?
It helps, definitely. When the coach is there for long, he gets enough time to experiment with the squad to ensure the best players are picked — who can pick his style. We have a good, rather great squad. All the boys are tested over these years by the coach. There are some excellent talents emerging at the right time. And there are some seasoned campaigners as well. It’s a good mix and the coach knows exactly what he wants from his footballers. We have to deliver, that’s it.
You have a chance to score three goals and be the highest scorer for Brazil. How important it would be to go past the legend, Pele?
I would love not to score three and win the competition! World Cup has never been for individual glory. We play for Brazil, the yellow shirt. The only important thing is a win for the team. About Pele, what should I say? He is football for us, nothing less than that. When you play long for the national team and get opportunities to score, it might happen that I can score more than him. But that’s nothing, simply nothing. What he had done is phenomenal. He is the O’rei, the king. You can only go past his numbers, playing more matches. It is him who had made Brazilian football reach such a height.