Neymar will miss Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League match against Barcelona next week after picking up an adductor injury.
The injury is expected to sideline the 29-year-old for up to four weeks, PSG announced Thursday.
“Neymar Jr. suffered a lesion to the left adductor on Wednesday evening. After analysis of clinical exams and scans, it is expected that he’ll be out for around four weeks depending on the evolution of the injury,” the team stated.
PSG take on Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 meeting on Feb. 16 at the Camp Nou.
The timeframe provided by PSG suggests Neymar could be available for the second leg on March 10 at the Parc des Princes.
The Brazilian star suffered the knock during PSG’s win over Caen on Wednesday when he was brought down by a heavy challenge in the second half.
Manchester City are waiting until the right moment to make another move for Lionel Messi.
Unlike Paris Saint-Germain, who’ve publicly courted the Argentine in recent months, City are keeping a low profile in the hopes of securing his exit from Barcelona, sources told ESPN’s Moises Llorens and Rodrigo Faez.
PSG have reportedly angered officials at Barcelona with their aggressive tactics. Sporting director Leonardo, manager Mauricio Pochettino, and former teammate and friend Neymar have all made it clear they would like to have Messi in Paris.
City have yet to make any such comments about the 33-year-old’s future. Manager Pep Guardiola has even called on the six-time Ballon d’Or winner to finish his career at Barcelona.
A source told ESPN that Messi doesn’t like “all that noise in the media” and that PSG are “making a mistake” by pursuing him publicly.
In December, Neymar expressed his desire to reunite with Messi next season, saying, “I want to play with him for sure.” Neymar and Leonardo reportedly discussed plans to sign Messi last summer.
Angel Di Maria, one of Messi’s international teammates on the Argentinian national team, fueled rumors when he said earlier this month that there’s a “big possibility” Messi will join PSG.
Barcelona boss Ronald Koeman said PSG were being disrespectful with their comments, and that Di Maria in particular showed a “lack of respect.”
City appear to have adopted a much quieter approach. Since Guardiola spoke to Messi on the phone last year, a number of people on City’s staff have reportedly remained in contact with the player’s entourage.
As a pending free agent, Messi is now allowed to negotiate with other teams and sign a pre-contract agreement with any club. He recently promised to wait until the end of the season to make a decision.
Hungary has landed another prestigious Champions League fixture.
UEFA confirmed Monday that Borussia Monchengladbach’s last-16 home leg against Manchester City will be held at Budapest’s Puskas Arena on Feb. 24. The English club was barred from traveling to Germany due to a local travel ban on countries hit by new, more contagious COVID-19 variants.
Liverpool face RB Leipzig at the same venue on Feb. 16.
“UEFA would like to thank Borussia VfL 1900 Monchengladbach and Manchester City FC for their close cooperation and support, as well as the Hungarian Football Federation for their assistance and agreeing to host the match in question,” UEFA’s statement read.
The opening match of the teams’ doubleheader represents their fifth Champions League meeting. City notched three wins and one draw over the 2015-16 and 2016-17 group stages, outscoring Monchengladbach 11-4.
Each day in January was the same; a dreary procession of minor loan deals and free transfers trundled its way through the month. Even Sky Sports News’ coverage – with its yellow-and-black, crime-scene color scheme and presenter Jim White’s perpetual excitement – struggled to exhibit its usual faux frenzy.
It was an uneventful, forgettable transfer window, and there are two key factors responsible.
The financial restraints brought on by the coronavirus pandemic are one obvious reason for the lack of business. Even the European glitterati are floundering. Barcelona reported losses of €97 million over the 2019-20 season despite playing 71% of their La Liga matches in front of fans, and they’ve desperately slashed wages to obey league-wide salary caps and ensure the club stays afloat.
Barcelona quibbling over around €3 million for Manchester City’s Eric Garcia – 18 months after aggressively pursuing Antoine Griezmann and triggering his €120-million release clause at Atletico Madrid – indicates the club is suddenly toeing a fiscal tightrope, but years of boardroom mismanagement were savagely exposed by the pandemic. Overall, Barcelona’s total debts are reportedly nearing €1.2 billion and there is little spare cash to satisfy the creditors.
The fan-owned (and, many assumed, prudently run) Bundesliga clubs are also on precarious footing: Borussia Dortmund are paying the price of having the biggest stadium in the country, with each spectator-free home match costing approximately €4 million in lost revenue.
Alexandre Simoes / Borussia Dortmund / Getty
Ligue 1 clubs, meanwhile, reportedly face a colossal deficit of more than €1.3 billion after a lucrative television deal collapsed in December.
The Premier League – the plump, ostentatious figure at the head of Europe’s top table – and England’s lower divisions weren’t immune from January’s difficulties. Top-flight clubs spent just £70 million – the lowest sum in nine years – while navigating an extra obstacle on their recruitment drive.
The nation’s football clubs had to quickly familiarize themselves with new rules pertaining to Brexit. These stipulations, introduced on Dec. 1, represent the other main reason for a dry January.
British clubs previously had few transfer restrictions on the continent because Europeans enjoy freedom of labor in countries that are members of the European Union. However, the UK’s divorce from the EU means European players, like footballers in other parts of the world, now need to acquire a governing body endorsement (GBE) to work in the English game.
The point-based system judges players on a range of matters, including the quality of their national teams and how many caps they have, the strength of the domestic league they play in, how their club fared in continental competitions, and youth-team appearances.
Fifteen points are needed to automatically obtain a GBE. Players who score 11 to 14 are referred to an exceptions panel, which has the final say on whether they are suitable for English football.
Dave Howarth – CameraSport / CameraSport / Getty
Under the revised guidelines, it’s unlikely a superstar such as Manchester City’s Riyad Mahrez – named PFA Player of the Year for his contribution to Leicester City’s improbable 2015-16 Premier League triumph – would’ve been allowed to move over because, at the time of his arrival, he was an uncapped player plying his trade in the French second division.
Teemu Pukki, who’s on course to be Norwich City’s top scorer for a third consecutive season, wouldn’t have got “anywhere near the points” required under the new rules, sports business expert John Print recently told BBC Sport’s Harry De Cosemo.
The clubs that seek value around the less-shopped areas of Europe will be most affected, rather than those buying established stars, and plenty of Premier League sides are picking through the game’s bargain bin for the next Mahrez or Pukki.
“I have found three players already who were capable of coming here and they’re not allowed. It’s a shame,” West Bromwich Albion manager Sam Allardyce, who openly backed Brexit, said in early January.
He added: “We’ll do what we can … finding a player in this pandemic is going to be the hardest window I have ever worked in.”
Lindsey Parnaby – PA Images / PA Images / Getty
Furthermore, English sides are banned from signing EU players aged 16 to 18, preventing the stockpiling of talent at the largest clubs’ academies. This will give the continental heavyweights a better opportunity of scooping up the best youngsters before they’re available to English outfits, or simply give smaller teams greater hope of keeping prospects for longer.
“It can really be a game-changer. At the moment, a lot of young talent from Holland and Belgium leave for English academies at an early age,” Johannes Spors, the sporting director of Dutch outfit Vitesse Arnhem, recently told The Guardian’s Ewan Murray. “That won’t be possible anymore, they’ll have to stay until at least 18, and even then they have to meet the points criteria.”
The new rules dictate that conducting local business and, conversely, striking deals in faraway lands should become more commonplace in England. The GBE’s high ranking of youth competitions and certain leagues in South America have made it easier to purchase from that part of the world, and the transfer fees there tend to be lower than those exchanged in Europe.
“There will be some emerging markets; the Brazilian market is one that will appeal to the Championship,” Queens Park Rangers director of football Les Ferdinand told the BBC. “They’ve got a lot of good, young players, but it means going out to Brazil and doing more of your scouting further afield.”
The GBE was introduced to English football in early December, so, on this occasion, the January window might have arrived too soon for clubs to unravel its mathematical equation and recalibrate their scouting networks.
It’s unlikely the exorbitant Neymar-esque fees will return to soccer for a few more windows yet, but there should be new trends developing in the current climate. The pandemic-hit finances and change to the UK political landscape have England braced for an influx of South American youth products, while the standout teenagers in mainland Europe stay put.
