‘By far the perfect’ – Casemiro defends Neymar’s ‘totally different way of life’ as he ranks Brazil co-star as higher than Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema & Luka Modric

The ex-Real Madrid midfielder believes it’s vital for the Selecao to be constructed round a star like Neymar, urging Ancelotti to pay attention to Messi’s integral function in Argentina’s World Cup success in 2022.

“If I have to stretch myself thin on the field so he can make the final pass, score the goal [I’ll do it],” he mentioned. “In the 2022 World Cup, people asked: ‘Is Neymar the star player of the team?’ And I answered like this: ‘If there’s a penalty in the last minute of the semi-final, who’s going to take it?’ I think Neymar is irresistible for anyone, but we know he has to be at his best. It’s much more up to him to know what to do and what not to do, but I think we need him. With his quality, we need him.”

Asked whether it is value stretching the staff tactically to go well with Neymar can be sensible, he replied: “Absolutely. Argentina did that with Messi. I’ll say it again: with their three best players in the world [Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar], you can put Neymar in and do that. It’s not that Neymar will just stand still while we run. That doesn’t exist. But Argentina did that. Julián Alvarez would drop back, and Messi would play as a false nine. They were defending in a low block, and Messi was just standing there up front.

“The high quality of those gamers is plain, you’ll be able to’t waste them, they’ve a lot expertise. And in soccer at the moment, the road between profitable and dropping may be very skinny. These gamers are those who break that line. Against Croatia [in the quarter-final], for instance, Neymar, at one level, scored a aim and that was it: he solved Brazil’s drawback at that second. The recreation was tight, the sport was tough, and at that second he scored an ideal aim and that was it, it was 1-0 for us.”