“This team will get a quality leap forward.”
Former Barcelona teammates Neymar and Dani Alves were reunited at Paris Saint-Germain last week.
The French club sealed a world record transfer for Neymar after agreeing to meet the player’s buyout clause.
Alves, who spent last season in Italy with Juventus, had made his switch to PSG weeks earlier. Prior to inking his deal at the Parc des Princes, the fullback had been expected to move to Manchester City after speaking of his desire to play under former manager Pep Guardiola again.
Although Alves’ reported £230,000-a-week deal at PSG is said to be more than double what City had offered him, it’s now emerged that Neymar – not the money – helped him decide to move to the French capital instead of Manchester.
“I talked to him about the possibility [that he would join PSG],” Alves us quoted as saying in the Mirror.
“He recommended me to come here. He suggested that I came to this club. I said I wanted to leave Juventus, and he was thinking of coming here.”
Clearly, this shows that Neymar had intentions of heading to PSG a good while before the deal had even started to make headlines.
“Neymar coming changes PSG’s position for sure,” Alves continued. “It’s inevitable that there are expectations. His greatness brings all that.
“There’s anticipation because of the football he plays and his will to show it to the world. You take a giant step when you have a player of this level to play against the other teams.
