During their tenure at Paris Saint-Germain, Brazil striker Neymar revealed he “lived through hell” with former teammate Lionel Messi.
Both Messi and Neymar left PSG this summer. Messi signed with Inter Miami CF as a free agent, and Neymar made a €90 million ($98.6 million) move to Saudi Pro League team Al Hilal.
Neymar was asked how he felt about seeing his good friend Messi win the World Cup with Argentina in 2022. In an interview from June that aired on Sunday, he told Globo’s Esporte Espetacular, “I was very happy for the year he had, but at the same time very sad, because he lived both sides of the coin.” He went to heaven with the Argentina team, which won everything in the last few years, and he went through hell with Paris. He and I both went through hell.
Messi and Neymar used to play together at Barcelona. At PSG, they won league titles but were not able to help the club win the Champions League.
Messi found it hard to adjust to life in Paris, and he admitted in June that there was a “fracture with a significant group of PSG fans” during his two years at the club.
Fans of PSG booed and jeered at both players after the team lost in the Champions League the last two years.
Messi scored 21 goals and set up 20 more in all competitions last season. In his last PSG home game, some fans also booed him.
Neymar said that he and Messi shouldn’t have been criticized for what they did.
Neymar, who missed the second half of last season with an ankle injury, said, “We get upset because we’re not there for nothing; we’re there to do our best, to be champions, and to try to make history.”
“That’s why we started playing together again. We met there so we could make history. We didn’t make it, which is too bad.”