Luis Suarez has revealed he attempted to convince former Barcelona teammate Neymar not to join Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.
Few transfers have ever had such a seismic impact as Neymar’s €222m move to Paris, which was met with plenty of controversy on both a financial and a sporting level.
At Barcelona, it brought an abrupt end to the famous ‘MSN’ trio of Lionel Messi, Suarez and Neymar, which is widely heralded as one of the most dominant trifectas in football history, and Suarez has confessed he did not want that era to end when it did.
Asked by Placar whether he and Messi spoke with Neymar before the transfer, Suarez said: “Yes. It hurt a lot for us as Neymar’s friends, because in pre-season, when we sat down to talk about it, he would tell us he wasn’t leaving.
“I didn’t like to talk about it much, but there came a time when it was too big of a deal, so we went to talk to Neymar and said: ‘Ney, if you want to win everything, stay here with us’. He would listen to us and say: ‘Yes, yes, yes, I want to stay’.
“But he has all the surroundings that are sometimes difficult to control. We, as friends, advised him to stay, but it’s his decision, his family’s decision.
“We said: ‘Neymar, England is better. [Manchester] City, the football will be better there. France?’.
“We then understood that French football had grown a lot, but at the time, we said the best thing was for him to stay, so when he made the decision, it stunned us because he was very important and it would be difficult to replace a player like him.”
Suarez, who now plays his club football in Brazil with Gremio, insisted Neymar would have won the Ballon d’Or had he remained with Barcelona.
“It’s hard to say [if Neymar would have been the best in the world], but if Neymar had stayed at Barcelona, he would have won a Ballon d’Or for sure,” Suarez continued.
“My view is that, if he had stayed, he would have won.”