Brazil coach Luis Felipe Scolari has admitted that Neymar is as important to his team as Messi is for Argentina, both being decisive to their teams at the World Cup in Brazil so far.
Neymar won the first match against Croatia after he managed to twist the result from 0-1, and scored twice against Cameroon. In his turn Leo Messi managed to bring up until now 6 points for Argentina, scoring each time the winning goal at this tournament.
Without any doubt the fans of the two national teams have placed high hopes in Barcelona stars, who are responsible to guide their squads to success in the tournament, which is also recognized by Luis Felipe Scolari.
“Brazil depend on Neymar like Argentina depend on Messi,” Scolari said at the post-match press conference.
“They are players who are different and can make the difference for their respective teams. Neymar is a point of reference to Brazil, like Messi is to Argentina.”
In the last-16 round Brazil will face Chile, and Scolari admitted he would have liked to meet another opponent.
“Many thought that Chile wouldn’t make it out of their group, but I’m not surprised. They have a lot of quality,” he added.
“If I had had the chance to choose an opponent I would have picked another team. I would have preferred not to meet Chile.
“It is always difficult to play against South American opposition. Chile have a lot of individual quality and are very well organised.”