Paris Saint-Germain ace Neymar has explained the reasoning behind his new celebration, which he showed off in midweek as the Ligue 1 champions romped to a 5-0 Champions League success over Galatasaray.
Neymar played a starring role in the match, turning in one of his strongest displays of 2019. After Mauro Icardi had opened the scoring, he set up Pablo Sarabia to double the lead before half-time, before finding the net himself early in the second half. He would later get an assist for Kylian Mbappe.
However, it was after his 47th-minute strike that he brought out his new celebration for the season, putting his finger to his lips and bowing his head after finding the target.
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“Everyone wants to start an argument over me,” he told Esporte Interativo . “This is a new celebration that I talked about with my friends. The idea is to forget everything else, to talk less and play more.”
Neymar also caught the eye late in the midweek fixture when he voluntarily handed the ball to Edinson Cavani to take a late penalty. Infamously, the pair had very publicly clashed over a similar situation soon after Neymar arrived at the club.
And he spoke about how important it was for him to give the chance to his team-mate to find the net.
“Individualism in football doesn’t fit. If I wanted that, I’d play tennis,” he said.
“But in football, everyone has to be happy, to feel good. Cavani needed it, he was missing a goal and every attacker likes to score. So he got it and we were very happy. I was happy and everyone went home happy.”
The 27-year-old, whose game time this season has been restricted by fitness and hamstring problems, has manged to score seven goals and create three more in 10 outings.
On Sunday, he will aim to add to that tally when PSG travel to face Saint-Etienne in a Ligue 1 encounter.
Thomas Tuchel’s side currently lead France’s top flight by five points over Marseille, though that could be trimmed to just two by the time they kick-off at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in the final game of the weekend.