As if their Ballon d’Or snub wasn’t enough, now, France Football has now left Neymar Jr. off their PSG Team of the Decade.
Since the first Ligue 1 match of 2020, the publication has been releasing its best starting lineups for every team competing in the top flight of French football.
The PSG edition was obviously the one that concerned us the most and we certainly have some questions for the editors who made the final decisions. First, here is France Football’s PSG Team of the Decade:
No Neymar in PSG’s Team of the Decade because of his injuries & missing key games. pic.twitter.com/YJzhzdSMNp
— M•A•J (@Ultra_Suristic) January 14, 2020
France Football went with a 3-4-3 formation with Salvatore Sirigu as the starting goalkeeper. That’s the first problem. Even in his short tenure with PSG, Keylor Navas is by far the better player and shouldn’t be penalized for his late arrival in the French capital.
I don’t have any issues with the midfield choice of Marco Verratti, Thiago Motta, and Blaise Matuidi, but I would have sacrificed Angel Di Maria for Neymar Jr.
The Brazilian is the better player and he could absolutely play the attacking midfield role behind Kylian Mbappé, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Edinson Cavani. That’s not to take away from Di Maria’s accomplishments since arriving in 2015, but Neymar has to be included in any PSG team of the decade.
France Football‘s argument for leaving the 27-year-old off was mostly due to his injuries, which caused him to miss key matches the past two seasons.
For me, when I’m putting together a PSG team of the decade, I take the pool of available players and try to put together the strongest possible starting lineup.
You cannot in good conscious leave Neymar out unless your ultimate motive is to make news with your choice or you simply have an agenda against the player.
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I agree, they’re probably just trying to make headlines but, another way to make a team of the decade is to put in the players who have had the biggest impact on the team. Using this criteria, I wouldn’t put Ney in mostly for the same reasons – he hasn’t been available to impact the big games. Angel on the other hand has been arguably PSG’s best player since he joined us.
That’s a fair point, but would you consider his impact off the pitch at all? It was recently announced that PSG had the 5th highest revenue in world football. That doesn’t happen without Neymar.
I personally wouldn’t consider financial impact; my team of the decade would be solely based on on-field performance. But I see your point, Ney has obviously had a massive financial impact on the club!
I did find it interesting that FF chose to go for three defenders, which is not a formation PSG used much this decade at all. But then what right back could I say was more deserving of a place in the team than any of the midfield/forward seven?
Sorry, this is nonsense. You’re criticising their decision yet admit your own criteria for picking the team of the decade would be different (choosing the best players from the entire pool, disregarding what they’ve done for the team – this is not what their list is). Whilst Neymar has obviously been a good player for PSG, so have the others in his position so it’s not a clear cut decision.
There is a concerted effort by the media to disregard Neymar and his accomplishments because of what he did (leave Barcelona for PSG).
Not only was he not in this list, but he was also left out of a Ligue 1 team of the decade and a Barcelona team of the decade. We’re talking about one of the best players in the game today and he can’t get into any of these teams?
Angel Di Maria is a great player but Neymar’s impact when healthy is greater in my opinion. When you factor in his financial impact on the club, I don’t see how he’s not included.
Sorry to disagree but I honestly don’t think he should have made it to any of those teams. Ok, maybe Barcelona.
I don’t think financial impact should be taken into consideration if the XI is based on performance for the club. It’s like saying X film should win the Palme d’Or because it sold more tickets than Y film.
That’s OK if you disagree 🙂 That’s what makes for great football debate.
I would add that if you don’t want to consider financial impact, then we should take out injuries because that’s not really the player’s fault. Looking at the number of games Neymar has played for PSG (72) and the number of goals (63) and assists (35), I just don’t see how you can leave him out of the PSG team.
well said neymar is by far one of the greatest players to play for psg without neymar psg failed dismally in champions league and he is the player that will take psg to the finals this season .neymar should be in the team of the decade numbers dont lie