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:
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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