FC Barcelona is one of, if not, the best futbol team out there. Being one of the best, there are players in the team that make it stand out so much, most notably, the MSN (Messi, Suarez, Neymar). This combination is considered one of the deadliest in the sport due to their agility and pure skill. These three have brought Barcelona countless victories and have given fans in the crowd a run for their money. But one player out of the three has made a decision that could change the balance of the team as we know it. This player is Neymar Jr.

Neymar is one of the youngest to play professional futbol, coming in at being 25 years old! Compared to some other star players, such as Messi (30), Suarez (30), and Ronaldo (32), Neymar is considered a child at the game, yet he has so much potential. Recently, he made a deal with Paris Saint-Germain FC (PSG), a professional futbol team that has lost its title as years go by. After the transfer of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, they have not made it to any finals and have not been having good seasons. With this transfer, there may be benefits to both PSG and Neymar.

PSG has been looking at Neymar for a long time. They have longed for a star player to come back to their team, but it was only a mere dream, that is until a phone call was made that changed everything. According to The Guardian, PSG had tried to get their hands on Neymar last year, but failed to when he signed a contract for Barcelona. The crestfallen team had forgotten about him entirely, but this year, Neymar called the chairman of PSG, Nasser al-Khelaifi, and said that he wanted to play on the team. They took no hesitation to transfer him, but because he had to renew his contract, the price of the transfer went “from euro190m to euro222m.” (Guardian) This made Neymar the most expensive player ever in the history of futbol, but it was a gamble that the Parisans wanted to take in order to make their dream come true.

Before this transfer was made public, there were a lot of rumors floating around about this topic. When learning about the transfer fee of this world renown player, fans and haters started to say that Neymar was only doing this for the money, which led to Neymar saying in an interview that “money was never my motivation.” So if money wasn’t his motivation to join PSG, what was? Coming from the most expensive player in the history of futbol, it comes as a surprise that money would not be his top priority, but there is a greater reason for him to transfer.

Looking back at MSN, Neymar would always be left out of all the glory. According to messivsronaldo.net, Neymar scored the least amount of points out of the three (Messi: 54, Suarez: 37, Neymar: 20). Being the youngster out of the whole team, it would make sense because these other players are more experienced and have a bigger reputation than Neymar i.e. Messi. Because Neymar has so much potential, he can compete with the best of them, but he can’t win all the attention when you are playing side by side by the most popular futballer in the world. The fans tend to only look at Messi and sometimes neglect Neymar. Due to this reason, he decided to transfer, due to this reason, he decided that he wanted to make a legacy of his own and not something that was made by someone else.

When the 18-19 season starts, hopefully we will be able to see Neymar shine in PSG, but for now, all we can do is wait on Barcelona to choose their new forward to fill in the missing hole.

<Timothy Rah Oxford Academy 10th Media Club>