Messi getting on well with Neymar

Messi getting on well with Neymar

The Argentinian is convinced that his new team-mate will bring plenty of joy to the club He added that Tata Martino is trying to get them to create more pressure and work on ball recovery

One day after Neymar scored his first goal for Barça in his first start alongside Messi, the Argentinian once again insisted that he and his new team-mate are getting along fine.

"We get on with each other off the pitch and we’re getting to know each other on it” he said. “We haven’t played much together. But he’ll bring a lot of joy to the club, to us and to the people." On the suggestion that their respective styles are not suited for each other, Messi replied that "these are things that come out of the press or who knows where. There’s no problem between us.”

Having scored five goals already in the preseason, which clearly shows that his injury woes are behind him, Messi humbly said that "I’m starting like I do every year. With the same enthusiasm as ever … After the injury at the end of last season, I had to work a little bit harder than the others, but now I’m fine.”

Tata Martino’s demands

The biggest change this year is the arrival of a new manager, Tata Martino, who Messi says "is telling us that we need to get back to being who we have been for the last few years … He wants us to create more pressure and work on recovering the ball as quickly as possible.” But it is still too early to draw conclusions: "We haven’t been working with Tata for long. For the time we’ve been together, things are working well, but we’re still getting to know each other. He only arrived very recently."

Messi concluded his conference by saying that "we are preparing for the matches very seriously, they’re good for getting us into our rhythm. We’re preparing nicely and should be in good shape for the first official matches."


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