Neymar revealed exciting details about his football journey during his appearance in a podcast in which he claimed that he was close to Bayern Munich and Real Madrid before moving to Barcelona.
According to the Brazilian international, Pep Guardiola tried to sign him and went to meet him in Switzerland to convince him to move to the Bavarian giants, while Real’s financial offer was legendary.
Neymar: Guardiola almost changed his name because of me!
Regarding Guardiola, he said, “I was in Switzerland to receive the Puskas Award, in my room. My father called me at two in the morning. He said he would come to my room. When I saw him, my father and Guardiola were there.”
He added, “I was wearing my underwear and I did not expect that, Guardiola told me that he wanted to take me to the club he would go to.”
“He’s going to make me the best. He took the laptop and the paper, and gave me everything. He said that if I didn’t score 60 goals a year he would change his name.”
“I asked him which club he was going to sign for, he said he couldn’t talk. I asked him ‘please’ and he said he would sign for Bayern. He said he knew it was a cold city, not like Barcelona or Madrid, but he promised he would take care of me.”
Neymar: Real Madrid gave me a blank cheque
On Real Madrid’s interest in him, he said: “Real Madrid’s offer was a blank cheque, they told me I could have whatever I wanted… but my heart wanted Barcelona.”
He continued: “I would have made three times as much money at Real Madrid. Florentino has always admired me. But Ronaldinho played for Barcelona and I wanted to play with Messi.”
Neymar: I taught Messi how to take penalties!
Neymar claimed he taught Messi how to take penalties, saying: “We were in training, he asked me… How do you take penalties like that? I was like: Are you crazy? You’re Messi, if I can do it, you can too. Then I taught him and he trained.”
