Lionel Messi was Neymar’s teammate at Barcelona and then at PSG.
And he hopes he could have the Brazilian — whom he has become friends with — as a possible rival at the upcoming World Cup.
“If Neymar has to go to the World Cup? I can’t be very objective because he’s my friend. Obviously, I would love for him to go, for good things to happen to him because he deserves it,” he said in an interview with journalist Pollo Alvarez.
“At World Cups, we always want the best to be there. And Ney, as long as he’s playing, will always be one of them,” he added.
Messi puts Brazil among the favorites for the World Cup: ‘Always a contender’
Messi is heading to the sixth World Cup of his career. A record he is expected to share with Cristiano Ronaldo and Mexico’s Ochoa — the trio have played in every edition since Germany 2006.
He was also asked about the player he has rivaled over the last two decades.
📸 Philipp Schmidli – 2016 Getty Images
Messi stressed that the rivalry stayed only on the pitch:
“What existed was a very beautiful sporting rivalry. I was at Barcelona, he was at Real Madrid, and we competed for everything. But our relationship was always good and respectful. There was never anything personal“.
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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.