Barcelona: Lionel Messi feared Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) forward Neymar would join Real Madrid in the summer if Barcelona failed to land his signature.
Neymar made it clear that he wanted to depart Parc des Princes but after a period of intense speculation that stretched throughout the transfer window, he ultimately stayed with PSG, the Ligue 1 champions.
Barcelona and Real Madrid were heavily linked with the 27-year-old but ultimately neither was willing to match PSG’s asking price for the prolific frontman. Nevertheless, in the game of transfer poker, Lionel Messi feared that Madrid would swoop in to sign Neymar.
“I honestly thought that in this market, if he did not come here (Barcelona), Neymar would go to Madrid,” Messi told radio station ‘RAC1’. “He was really looking forward to leaving and making a change, and he thought that Florentino Perez and Madrid would do something to sign him.”
Neymar left Barca under something of a cloud back in 2017 and Messi believes that his former teammate regretted the decision to swap Camp Nou in favour of a switch to France.
“I think so (he regretted the decision). Shortly after Neymar left he realised that he was wrong and that he had made a bad decision. It would be necessary to ask him but, knowing him and seeing what happened, I think so (he regretted leaving),” Messi stated.
“Having had him on the team would have given us more options but I understand that the signing of Neymar is not only looked at for sporting reasons but also for having left the way he did. There are those who didn’t want him to return – it’s understandable. It was complicated,” the Barcelona attacker added.
AFP