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Portrait of Neymar Jr before the Champions League 2023 Round of 16 match between PSG and Bayern Munich at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 14 February 2023 PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY JulienxMattiax/xLexPictorium LePictorium_0275082
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Portrait of Neymar Jr before the Champions League 2023 Round of 16 match between PSG and Bayern Munich at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 14 February 2023 PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY JulienxMattiax/xLexPictorium LePictorium_0275082
In recent days, Neymar has been in the news headlines. Mainly because of his upcoming move to Saudi Arabia. PSG allowed him to leave the club for a substantial fee after he stated his desire to move on. A soccer club in Saudi recently offered him a lucrative contract. Everyone isn’t happy with the Brazilian icon’s potential move. A well-known sports author deemed this move as another ‘misstep’ of Neymar’s career.
Without a doubt, Neymar will become one of the highest-paid players in the Saudi Pro League. The $218 million deal will likely go through as the soccer veteran is reportedly keen. He will be joining a bracket of players who were pioneers to leave European soccer for a new challenge with Cristiano Ronaldo at the helm.
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A popular author attempts to reason out Neymar’s want to move of Europe
In all likelihood, Neymar is off to Saudi Arabia. On multiple occasions has made such kind of unexpected decisions in his soccer career. Nobody expected him to actually leave FC Barcelona all of a sudden too. After his Al Hilal transfer news surfaced on the internet, quite a few people haven’t been too pleased. One such person is Julio Gomes, an author at UOL. He explained his reasons for being upset with Neymar.
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Friendly match Jeonbuk Hyundai vs PSG – 20230803 BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA, AUG 03 : Neymar Junior of PSG reacts during soccer pre-season friendly match between Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and PSG Paris-Saint-Germain FC at the Busan Asiad Main Stadium in Busan, South Korea, in Busan, South Korea, 03 August 2023. Editorial Use Only Busan the Busan Asiad Main Stadium South Korea 7925_273707 Copyright: xPENTAxPRESSx
He started off by calling the Brazilian icon’s upcoming transfer ‘the umpteenth misstep’ of his career. The author wrote, “Why will Neymar end up in the Saudi League? Essentially, because nobody wants him. Or there are those who do because the guy is a star, but the price to be paid is not worth the trouble. It’s a question of cost-benefit. Neymar is a product that costs more than it is worth“, as translated by DeepL.
The author admitted that the winger was a ‘genius’. But on the pitch, he needed to ‘adopt a positive attitude toward coaches and teammates’. Gomes quoted, “Any team in the world would like to have him but for the right price. And the spiral of contracts and salaries has made Neymar an unviable guy for Europe – the exceptions are clubs that simply don’t want him anymore”.
Without a doubt, those were strong words to describe the possible reason why Neymar was opting for a move outside of Europe. Reportedly in favor of accepting a $218 million deal as per Fox Sports, he’s surely not the first big soccer star to move out of Europe. Let’s dive deeper.
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Neymar set to join Saudi Arabia after tons of soccer veterans
The entire movement started when Cristiano Ronaldo joined Al Nassr in January. Since then, clubs from the Saudi Pro League have made generous and lucrative offers to tons of soccer stars. Big names like Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante, Sadio Mane, and many more have joined the bandwagon. Although, there’ve been a few big names who declined the offers from the Middle East.
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via Reuters
Soccer Football – Arab Club Champions Cup – Final – Al Hilal v Al Nassr – King Fahd Stadium, Taif, Saudi Arabia – August 12, 2023 Al Nassr’s Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates with the trophy after winning the Arab Club Champions Cup final REUTERS/Stringer
PSG star Kylian Mbappe is one of them. In fact, Al Hilal bid for both Mbappe and Messi who used to be Neymar’s teammates. But both rejected the proposal. Mbappe is still in France, while Messi has become an overnight soccer hero at Inter Miami in America. For sure, this ongoing soccer season is the start of something new and completely different in the soccer universe.
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What do you think about Neymar’s move to Al Hilal? Let us know in the comments below.
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