Jordi Mestre, Barcelona’s former sport vice-president, talked about Neymar’s possible return to the team in an interview with ‘Mundo Deportivo’.
A few months ago, Jordi Mestre decided to resign and went out the back door without making much noise from Barcelona. The former sports vice-president bet strongly on Pep Segura and, in view of the criticism of his figure, he decided to leave.
Now, he has reviewed his former club’s current situation, including a possible return from Neymar, which seems even more complicated than before.
“If Neymar returned he would have to make an act of contrition, withdraw the lawsuit against the club, reprimand himself, ask for forgiveness, assume his mistake and, of course, lead an almost monastic life,” began Mestre, who did showed himself in favour of a comeback from the Brazilian: “From the emotional point of view because of how he left, no, but from the sporting point of view, yes.”
The former sports vice-president recalled the Brazilian’s strange departure: “Nobody knew he was leaving because he didn’t tell absolutely anyone at the club. Then, shortly afterwards, he told us he regretted and wanted to come back.”
After talking about the PSG player, Mestre went on to analyse the current Barcelona crisis, which began with Valverde’s departure and reached its climax with the Abidal-Messi confrontation.
“I think that Messi and Abidal had a bad feeling about what happened and the last thing they would want would be to harm the team and the club,” he said of the latest controversy. When it comes to Valverde’s departure, he admits he had a hard time understanding it: “To think, we must know the situation in the first person. Normally a coach is not changed at mid-season being first and being in the eighth of Champions as first. I agree, that maybe we lacked a more attractive dynamic of the game, but results were not bad.”
Mestre tried to explain the transfers of Murillo and Boateng in the past winter market and the refusal of Morata. “There has been a lot of criticism of the transfers of Boateng and Murillo in winter, but the message of the Board was always: ‘There is no money’. Following the opinion of the professionals, bringing Morata would have created a possible conflict in the locker room. He would have liked to play and not be a substitute,” he said.
Finally, he admitted that Barcelona already noticed Setién when he conquered the Camp Nou with Betis, although from there to his signing there was a lot of distance: “In Barça it is not easy to train. You have to win everything. You have to be patient. We already liked Setién. When he beat us 3-4 at home we met him in the dressing room and told him, but it’s not the same to train Lugo, Las Palmas or Betis as Barça”.