Five years after becoming the most expensive signing in history (222 million euros), Neymar's time at PSG seems to have come to an end. It has been five years full of differences, comings and goings, good performances but also many stoppages due to constant injuries. All this without achieving the proposed objectives: neither lifting the Champions League by the club nor that of the Brazilian himself to become the best in the world.
It is an exhausted relationship and for that reason both parties have decided to separate their paths. The process is expected to be complex due to the lack of candidates to take on the attacker's high profile, with Chelsea being the one with the most options.
As reported this Thursday by Le Parisien, a newspaper with good sources at PSG, Neymar and PSG have agreed to close their story. The problem is how. With an annual salary of 35 million euros net and 30 years of age, few clubs in Europe's elite have the ability - or the desire - to hire him.
Although the Parisian club used the image of the Brazilian to promote its new kit for the 2022-2023 season -along with those of Mbappé, Messi and Marquinhos-, the new sports project of the Qatari administration no longer has Neymar as the first sword.
PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi hinted at this in an interview, stating that in the new Mbappé era, supervised by the Portuguese Luis Campos as sports adviser, there is no longer room for "ostentation, nor sequins." According to Le Parisien, Neymar and his clan, led by his father, took the hint.
Neymar is running out of great support in the French entity. His compatriot Leonardo has just left the club's sports management and several of the Spanish-speakers in the locker room have either left, like Ángel di María, or are on the sales list, like Leandro Paredes. Messi is one of the few friends who resist. In addition, Neymar's relationship with Mbappé has cooled down in recent years. According to the press, the French striker disapproves of certain frivolities and licenses granted to the Brazilian, who has missed a large number of games due to injuries.
Amid the storm clouds, an old colleague from PSG, fellow Brazilian Thiago Silva, has come to the rescue. In an interview with the media in his country, the veteran defender called him to join the English club. "It has to come, if it happened, it would be the best (...) At the moment I don't know anything, but I hope it happens." According to media such as L'Équipe, the team led by the German Thomas Tuchel, who coincided with Neymar at PSG, is one of the few places where the striker would agree to land, both for salary and for the sports project.
If he did not find accommodation in Europe, in Brazil they would receive him with open arms, although they would hardly be able to satisfy the footballer's economic claims. The president of Santos, Andrés Rueda, assured that from the club "they are carrying out actions" for an eventual return of Neymar.
"Action is being carried out, but there are things on the council that I cannot talk about; it's a strategy," said Rueda, without offering more details about what steps he has taken to try to bring Neymar back, who left Santos in 2013 to head to Barça, a club for which he sounded to return in past summers, but not in the current one, already without Messi.
Amid speculation about his future, Neymar is in Brazil enjoying his vacation and this Wednesday he shared a photograph of him from a party he organized at his mansion on the Rio de Janeiro coast. "Be happy", wrote the Brazilian striker to accompany the image
