A few days after Kylian Mbappé, Neymar also spoke to French media and looked back on his time at PSG from 2017 to 2023. If the Brazilian has good memories of Paris and thinks he played the best football of his career there, he didn't like the end of his Parisian adventure and is angry with certain people at the club.
Neymar spoke to Marion Bartoli on RMC Sport in a long interview which was broadcast on Sunday, a few hours before PSG/OL (3-1). Currently injured, Al-Hilal number 10 first returned to his departure from PSG in the summer of 2023 and his transfer to Saudi Arabia, confirming that he had been pushed out by the club and Luis Enrique.
“I decided to leave PSG and this offer to join Al Hilal arrived… I got the offer right after I left, because I was simply no longer happy there, at PSG. The club and the coach no longer wanted to use me. They had already told me about it, so I had to make a decision. And I liked Al Hilal’s proposal”he confided.
“There is this feeling of sadness because I didn’t do a whole season”
Believing that its “Sporting years at PSG were surely the best” of his career, Neymar regretted his numerous injuries in Paris: “It was very sad for me, because I often had very serious injuries which could last from three, four to six months. It bothered me a lot, but on a football level, on a sporting level, it was the best Neymar they had in my entire career. So I'm happy to have been able to offer this to French football, but on the one hand, there is also this feeling of sadness… Because I didn't do an entire season, only the year 2020, when we reached the Champions League final. It really was a great year when I look back on it. I will never forget these moments, they are engraved in my heart. »
When remaking the film of his Parisian story, Neymar remembers the idyllic beginnings, but also a complicated ending: “The first year was magnificent, I was very well received by the French people and supporters. The last two, three years haven't been the same, it wasn't incredible the way I was treated, it's the same for Lionel Messi. For me, there was injustice, because I always gave my all on the pitch. »
« Our relationship was no longer respectful”
Neymar notably returned to the episode of May 2023, when some PSG supporters went to his home in Bougival to demand his departure: “I have no hard feelings, but I was a little sad about the way I was treated by the supporters, especially when they came to my house, when they wanted to invade my house, insult me or wanting to hit me. For me, they crossed the line. Our relationship was no longer respectful, while I always respected them… It was really a complicated situation. I was sad by the way I was treated at the end, but it passed. »
Finally, if Neymar ensures “respect the PSG club” and always support him, he confirms having “a little resentment towards people who manage the club and some supporters”. “But that’s in the past. It's the club where I spent the most time in my career, six years. I experienced some very beautiful moments, but also some sad moments. And my relationship with the supporters is rather one of the sad moments, unfortunately. But on a sporting level, it was the best football I played. So I'm happy and I have a clear conscience about that.”he concluded.
Find Neymar's full interview with RMC Sport here.
