Aged 31 before the semester, with an inconsequential stint at Paris Saint Germain, where he never justified the exorbitant €222m fee for his transfer from FC Barcelona; and with a stagnant career of more than five years, both in clubs and in the Brazilian team, Neymar is now considered a problem player. Few want this in their templates. That’s a risk.

His status as a football star is long over. Those who bet on Neymar as a star lost. Those who predicted that it would be a supercrack failed. He never won the Ballon d’Or and as his tumultuous career enters its final years, Neymar is locked up in the place where he thought he would get a second chance: FC Barcelona. Today he is known more for his indiscipline than for his skill.

Neymar is out of Paris Saint-Germain: DT Luis Enrique doesn’t have him

‘Xavi keeps blocking Neymar,’ he says AS this Friday about the Brazilian’s attempt to return to the club from which he decided to go to France because he is fed up with the attention monopolized by Lionel Messi.

According to a note in the Madrid newspaper, “Xavi Hernández is still not convinced about signing Neymar. The Blaugrana coach remains firm in his blockade of the Brazilian striker’s arrival, despite insistence in some sectors of the club to offer the PSG player as the most important alternative to cover the loss of Ousmane Dembélé”.

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Reasons for rejection? “The argument for the coach’s exclusion of Neymar is not sporting – in this section it is considered that he could be a useful player, despite his history of injuries -, but clearly extra-sporting: it is worrying that he ends up becoming a player who is a bad influence on a dressing room full of young players.

And although it is Xavi who is against it, the former midfielder, with a fantastic career as a player at FC Barcelona, ​​with whom he already has a championship title as a coach, could unlock an attempt at a comeback.

Neymar has been fined for carrying out work on a beach house that violates environmental laws

“The only one who can unblock the situation is Xavi himself. If the coach calls Neymar and explains to him the conditions he requires to open the door for him, and the international accepts them, the first step would be taken for the attacker’s return to Barcelona. AS.

But also, “besides Xavi’s still firm refusal, there is another element holding back Neymar’s arrival today. And that is that the uncertain economic situation of the club – with serious problems to register all the players of its team on the first day of LaLiga – prevents it from planning large operations, and even less with pure tokens of 12 million euros, they cannot fit into financial fair play. (D)