Neymar has lashed out at his critics after suffering an injury which will keep him out of Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League clash with his former club Barcelona next week.
The Brazilian has been ruled out for approximately four weeks, leaving him racing to be fit for the second leg on March 10.
Missing Champions League knockout fixtures through injury has become an unwanted theme of his time at PSG and Neymar has responded to this latest setback with obvious frustration.
What has Neymar said?
In an Instagram post on Thursday, Neymar wrote: "The sadness is great, the pain is immense and the crying is constant.
“Once again, I will stop for a while doing what I love the most in life, which is playing football. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable because of my style of play, because I dribble and they constantly hit me.
"I don't know if the problem is me or what I do on the field. It saddens me a lot. It saddens me a lot to hear from a player, coach, commentator or whoever the hell it is, that ‘you really have to hit him’, ‘he falls’, ‘he cries’, ‘a child’, ‘spoiled’ etc.
"It honestly saddens me and I don't even know how much I can bear it. I just want to be happy playing football. NOTHING ELSE."
Team-mates and peers including Kylian Mbappe, Cesc Fabregas, Richarlison and Alessandro Florenzi commented on the post with messages of support.
What happened to Neymar?
The ex-Santos and Barcelona forward started for his side in a Coupe de France clash with Caen on Wednesday as one of few regular first-teamers as Mauricio Pochettino rotated his XI for the round-of-64 encounter.
PSG made the breakthrough just after half-time, when Moise Kean hit the back of the net.
But the club's joy proved short-lived when 64 minutes into the game, Neymar went down holding his left adductor muscle.
The Brazilian disappeared straight down the tunnel, with Kylian Mbappe called off the bench to replace his usual strike partner.
A history of Champions League disappointments
It is not the first time Neymar's health has taken centre-stage ahead of a key European knockout match.
In the 2017-18 season, his first since completing a world-record transfer from Barca, the striker fractured a metatarsal bone and missed the last three months of the season, during which time PSG bombed out of the Champions League last 16 at the hands of Real Madrid.
He then suffered an almost identical fate in January 2019, and could only look on as the French side were upset by Manchester United at the same stage.
When do PSG take on Barcelona?
The first leg of the blockbuster Champions League tie kicks off on Tuesday at Camp Nou.
Barca will then travel to Parc des Princes for the return leg on March 10.
