Neymar ready to deliver for PSG on biggest stage
PARIS Saint-Germain's fortunes in the Champions League in recent years have been inextricably linked to those of Neymar, even before they bought the Brazilian for a world record fee, and if he maintains his recent form in tomorrow’s final it may make the difference against formidable Bayern Munich.
At 28, Neymar is desperate to get his hands on another Champions League winner’s medal, five years after he won the competition with Barcelona.
If he can play the starring role in a PSG victory — while Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus were absent altogether from the final eight and Lionel Messi and Barcelona went home in disarray — he will perhaps be accepted as the best player in the world, even with no Ballon d'Or in this pandemic year.
It would be good timing for Netflix too, with the streaming service currently working on a documentary series about his season in Paris according to reports in Brazil.
And for PSG and their Qatari owners, it would validate their decision to pay $264 million to take him from Barcelona three years ago, after his first two seasons in the French capital were overshadowed by injury and constant reports that he was unsettled.
When Paris signed him in August 2017, they were still reeling in the wake of their spectacular Champions League exit against Barcelona a few months earlier.
After a stunning 4-0 win in the first leg of that last-16 tie, PSG collapsed in the return at the Camp Nou. Barcelona scored three times after the 88th minute, with Neymar hitting two of them, as Barcelona won 6-1. PSG went out, humiliated.
It was not the first time PSG had been stung by Neymar — when the sides met in the quarterfinals in 2015, he scored the first goal as Barca won 3-1 in France and then scored both in a 2-0 second-leg win. But Neymar’s first two years at the Parc des Princes were one long melodrama.
A brilliant player who was happy at Barcelona but had been eager to step out of Messi’s shadow, he never appeared at ease in his new surroundings. By the summer of 2019 it was no secret he wanted to leave. The move had been a mistake, but then it became clear the transfer back to Barcelona would not happen.