Verratti shares a wild story with Neymar and Messi

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·30 de julio de 2025

Verratti shares a wild story with Neymar and Messi

Marco Verratti, a 32-year-old midfielder now at Al-Duhail SC (Qatar), confided in La Gazzetta dello Sport as he acquired a significant stake in Pescara, his training club. The opportunity for the former Paris Saint-Germain player (2012-2023) to revisit a very special episode: the arrival of Lionel Messi in 2021 experienced from Ibiza, with Neymar in particular.

“A fantastic evening that became almost magical.”

“I remember a fantastic evening that became almost magical. We were in Ibiza, Neymar came to see me and told me that we were having dinner with Leo Messi that evening. So, we met at the table, Leo, Paredes, Ney, and Di Maria. We talked and had a good time. And we encouraged him, so to speak, to come to Paris. Late in the evening, we said goodbye to him, and the next day, we read that there were problems between him and Barcelona.”

“Incredible: from having him for dinner to having him as a teammate.”

Then, in the early afternoon, Neymar called me: “Marco, Leo is coming to us.” Incredible: from having him for dinner to having him as a teammate. A magical evening. Neymar? A golden boy, generous, humble, who gives everything to the people he loves, we always stay in touch.”

This is one of the small stories of football, with players who see and talk to each other, of course, off the pitch. There are even sometimes friendships that are formed without the players being in the same club. But the timing is particularly notable here. Nothing says, of course, that it was this dinner that brought Messi to sign with PSG.

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But maybe the choice was simpler once there was a blockage with FC Barcelona. In any case, it went very quickly for Verratti. Who, like any football lover, must have already been happy to be able to exchange with such a striking player. The next day, he learned that he would play alongside him.

Unfortunately, Messi's Parisian adventure will not remain as a very positive memory for Parisian supporters. Perhaps it even contributed a bit to Verratti's departure, after a very mixed period at PSG that led the club to review its strategy.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.