The Brazilian Olympic coach, André Jardine, confirmed this Friday Neymar's desire to play the Tokyo Olympics, which will begin on July 23. His Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappé is on a French pre-list for the Olympics.
“Within the idea of having the strongest team for the Olympic Games, having a player like Neymar is in line with that maxim and with the goal we have set for ourselves. And he wants to,” Jardine said at a press conference.
The coach indicated that having Neymar at the Olympic event would be “a dream”, but acknowledged that his presence in the U23 team is a “sensitive issue” that “is being dealt with directly” by the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), Rogério Caboclo. “I believe that in a short time we will have an answer in this regard,” he completed.
Neymar, the top star of the absolute Brazilian team, has already won the gold medal at the Olympic Games organized by Rio de Janeiro in 2016, which was also the first gold medal for Brazilian men's football.
According to Jardine, the PSG attacker wants to fight now for his second gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which will be played between July 23 and August 8, after having been postponed for a year due to the new coronavirus pandemic .
The question of whether Neymar will be called to play the Copa América to be played in Colombia and Argentina between June 13 and July 10 of this year also hovers overhead.
The senior coach, Adenor Leonardo Bacchi 'Tite', gave no clues as to whether he will finally be among those called up for the tournament, in which Brazil will defend the title it won in 2019, the year in which it hosted.
The presence of Neymar is confirmed, however, for the next two matches of the South American qualifiers for the Qatar 2022 World Cup, against Ecuador and Paraguay, scheduled for June 4 and 8, respectively.