Brazilian forward Neymar believes he has a near telepathic understanding with his Barcelona teammates Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.
The trio, commonly dubbed “MSN”, played for the first time together this season against Celtic in the Champions League on Tuesday and were all on the score sheet.
Barcelona ran out comfortable 7-0 winners with Neymar creating four of those goals, assisting Messi twice and Suarez once, as well as scoring one himself.
“It was special for the three of us to play together for the first time this season and we are very pleased with our performance,” Neymar told Goal.
“We are at a place now where we know the way each other thinks, the runs we make, the positions we will be in. We can still get better though, our communication and understanding of each other is improving all the time.
“We are not playing for ourselves, nobody is looking for personal glory. It is always nice to score goals, but if I score, if Luis scores, if Leo scores, it doesn’t matter – we are as happy creating goals for each other as scoring them.
“Our understanding on the field is helped by our relationship off it. We are all good friends, and I think that shows in the way we play. It is very early in the season, we can get better, and help make it a very successful season for Barcelona.”
Since the arrival of Suarez in the summer of 2014, completing the triumvirate, they’ve scored a combined 266 goals with 71 of those being contributed by Neymar.
Last season the forward managed 31 goals across 49 matches in all competitions while creating a further 31 for his teammates.
Tuesday’s game was Neymar’s second after an eventual summer. The 24-year-old guided his country to a first gold medal in the men’s football tournament at the summer Olympics.
Brazil overcame Germany in the final on penalties, with Neymar converting the winning spot kick.
He finished the competition with four goals across six games including scoring in the final itself.
Neymar is also on course to become Brazil’s all-time leading goalscorer, currently sitting joint fourth on the list alongside Zico with 48 goals scored across 72 matches.
COMMENTS