Neymar and Cavani clashed over the penalty and free kick. Do you think Neymar is too wayward?

Ivan Ahabwe

a fan in love with the game

23w ago

No, Neymar’s actions were not wayward.

As Aditya Gaonkar's answer very eloquently explains, Neymar went to PSG to be the main man. He left Barcelona so he could finally become the face of football club.

Do I blame Neymar in any way?

No, not at all. Neymar is incomparable to any player in the Ligue 1 and he knows it. He knows he is the main man. He left a club where he played with the best striker in the world and one of the greatest players to have graced this earth, so he could finally become the star, not just a star. So I can’t, in any way, blame him for assuming he had set-piece taking duties.

Do I blame Cavani?

Absolutely not! Cavani has built his reputation with PSG. Imagine this. You start a project, perform excellently and the board is impressed that they start investing in your project by adding more people to the team. However, one of those added wants to take control over something you have worked so hard on.

I ask you one question.

Would you allow the added member to take control? Probably not.

That is exactly how Cavani felt, and I can’t blame him.

This is what Cavani had to say about the clash:

“These things are created,” said the Uruguayan. “I don’t know why these stories are created. The truth is that these are normal things; things that happen in football.

“Neymar has just arrived and like I said from the beginning, we are keen for him to adapt in the best way possible. I think that’s been proven because you can see he is adapting quickly.”

Aditya Gaonkar

Barcelona fan. Cruyffista.

23w ago

Neymar isn’t wayward. He went to PSG to be the “main man”. That would include being the one to take penalties and free kicks, the way Messi does at Barca and Cristiano does at RM. His intentions are clear- he wants to stat pad as much goals as possible in his ultimate quest, winning the Ballon d’Or.

Edison Cavani was under Zlatan’s shadow for 3 years at PSG and became the main striker only last season, impressing on an individual level. He has been at PSG for 4 seasons and is Neymar’s senior in the dressing room. As such, Cavani has the legit claim to first choice on set pieces in my eyes, given his seniority and clinicalness and he had the right to reject Neymar’s claim. However, Neymar hasn’t taken kindly to this, clashing on the pitch, in the dressing room apparently and also unfollowing Cavani on social media. Also, apparently the passing combination numbers of these 2 are worrisome:

What will happen now? Given Neymar’s price tag and his importance to PSG’s project, I think Cavani will be explicitly asked to give up his set piece duties, potentially causing Cavani to backlash and even possibly hand in a transfer request, all while possibly having the star front 3 not gel in as intended for this season. I am very interested to see how PSG will resolve this issue.

Somnath Mishra

Football Lover, La liga follower

23w ago

Neymar isn’t wayward when he knows there are bigger things around that he can’t mess with, he was very easy to deal with in Barcelona,. He knew Barcelona is a European giant with a glorious history and players who have been better than him have come and gone frequently to Barcelona. He played under the shadow of Messi as anyone would and accepted Messi’s supremacy. Messi was impressed with his humility and they developed a great partnership often assisting each other with goals.

Now as he is reaching the peak of his career and Messi doesn’t seem to get worse at all. he decided to make a move, a move to come out of the shadow of Messi and become the top dog somewhere, he knew if he stayed at Barca and helped Barca win everything it would still be Messi winning all the individual accolades.

He moved to PSG for money and also for the undisputed stardom, there he met Cavani. Cavani who himself was playing under the shadow of Zlatan until recently and had become the top dog of PSG only last season and the results were obvious, his personal tally of goals from 20 something per season moved to 49. He he has earned his status of their to go man with years of consistency and he isn’t ready to give that up so easily, he is right to do so.

Here in this case Neymar is acting wayward, Cavani is a striker and is a better finisher than Neymar, he missed only one penalty last season while Neymar goofed up four, Cavani is also a senior in the squad and is the designated penalty taker of PSG, as a new joinee Neymar should have taken things politely and tried to build a friendly relationship with his fellow striking partner instead he is acting like a bully and wants to waste no time in making sure that everyone in the squad knows he is the Boss.

This isn’t really gonna go well for PSG and whoever gets the designated penalty taker role the other is going to end up unhappy which might reflect in their usual attacking play. Considering the magnitude of talent, Neymar is PSG’s best player and the game should be centered around him but the best player needn’t necessarily be the designated penalty taker especially if someone better is already there in the team. Xavi and Iniesta were the two best players of Spain in last decade but the designated penalty taker was Alonso as he was a better penalty taker.

Ankit More

Just a football romantist with better observational skills..

23w ago

Its nothing new for players to have disagreement over free kicks and penalties. Players with higher self confidence always want to touch the ball. Its a boon that PSG has Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe as their strikers. Having a competition among themselves helps bring the best out of each other which inadvertently helps the team.

No, Neymar isn’t wayward here. During freekicks, a lot of factors make player either confident to take the free kick or wise enough to leave it to your teammate. The wall position, the gap for natural curve shot of the player, the positioning of gk. Unfortunately, both Neymar and Cavani were confident and it led to disagreement. As far as penalty is concerned, Messi let Neymar take a lot of penalties and Neymar felt it would be the same here. People miss out that in a penalty taking hierarchy, a striker comes first. Plus, Cavani has respect of the players as he has consistently delivered for PSG. So, Neymar gave it a shot and Cavani declined it. No fuss.

Both Nasser Khelaifi and Emery spoke to the players afterwards and MADE IT CLEAR THAT CAVANI WOULD BE THE FIRST CHOICE FOR PENALTIES. They did what they should have done earlier, set the duties from start.

All other talks of players not gelling well and fans eager to see how it pans out is a shoddy attempt at cheap entertainment. Utmost professionalism comes first and both Neymar and Cavani realise it the most. All fans can do is talk and talk while the players go perform.

Moatez Younes

former Football Player at Málaga C.F.

23w ago

Yes, Neymar is hard to control with his ego. He’s like the football spoiled brat who wants everything to go his way. No much respect for other experienced players, recently had a fight with his teammate Semedo in Barcelona, in Santos he was the main reason to get his coach sacked (the coach had someone else to take penalty shots, Neymar didn’t like it so coach didn’t play him for 2 games resulting in firing him). Many stories of his problems with players and coaches.

First of all let us not forget that Cavani waited too much for this moment/season, because for the past years Ibrahimovic was the main star of the team while Cavani was his shadow. Back in Napoli Cavani was the main star so it was difficult for him not being the main player of the team. Ibrahimovic left and it was time for Cavani to become the main star but Neymar came along this season.

They both have to agree who takes what, in my opinion Cavani should take penalty kicks 1. He’s a good shooter 2. Been taking them for years. On the other hand, Neymar has an advantage on free kicks. At the end of this, the coach has to make a decision on who takes what.

Ajwad Naeem

BA (Hons) Economics & Statistics, University of Toronto St. George Campus (2015)

23w ago

Neymar’s personality has long been exposed since he moved to Barcelona and started earning millions. I won’t go too far but in recent months, he had an outburst in Barcelona training camp in US on their preseason where he treated his teammate of that time Semedo with disrespect for his awkward challenge. The poor guy only listened to Neymar’s berating while he walked out of the training facilities. His behavior was on display again in champions league opener against Celtic.

He is THE STAR in Brazil and he knows there a lot of expectations on his shoulder to win the World cup which he probably will I think. But this star status at the age of just 25 accompanied by the sort of parenting from his father didn’t do him much good in showing humbleness at least to his fellow teammates. I understand the media can be hard sometimes and few oppositions on the field purposely try to trigger your dark side and I don’t see a problem with a few outbursts with that here and there. But for long he has wanted to be a figure in a team where every one treats him like Messi at Barcelona or Ronaldo at Madrid, although it is fair to say he still has a lot of catching up to do both in terms of character and footballing terms.

I’m not surprised he wanted to take the spot kick responsibility from Cavani. I was actually surprised when Cavani took the two penalties PSG received in earlier matches. Since Neymar has that free role on the pitch, I thought all set pieces would be his to take. I’m not even surprised he behaved like that on the pitch instead of discussing this before hand in the dressing room with Cavani and coach over possible penalty kicks. This is what who he is and have become. More incidences will pour out in the future and PSG should be prepared for it. The kind of status and money they have offered to Neymar, it won’t put his feet to ground anytime soon. Plus over the years we have seen a large chunk of Brazilian footballers lacking professionalism and Neymar wouldn’t be the last.

Thanks for A2A

Qureshi Muhammad Usman

Lecturer

23w ago

He does have an ego the size of the country of brasil, but what else do you expect a man to do when he just shatterd the transfered record. Footballers are spoilt brats given too much money and importance. What they do week in week out is no doubt very difficult but its not worth as much as they r paid. Soo kfcoursethis was expected. He went to psg to become the “main man" the main attraction there, and that means taking all the set pieces getiing in control of everything

Aulia Indra

sports fan especially football

23w ago

i’m not surprised

neymar wanted to be the main man since he can’t do it in barca because messi is there,while cavani wanted to prove himself once more after ended up being 2nd fiddle to ibrahimovic

it’s just matter of time before they clashed, and i’m sure PSG dressing room already been split into 2 sides if not more because of this