Translated Neymar Interviews Are A Gift [Updated]

Barcelona forward Neymar's play has people calling him a genius, but if recent interviews are any indication, we may have been selling the guy short by limiting that descriptor to his athletic ability.

Update: Turns out it was too good to be true. Neymar's official page was updated and he is denying ever giving an interview to Revista da Internet.

ESPN FC has a story that includes translated excerpts from an interview Neymar gave to Revista da Internet, in which Neymar explains how Barcelona will cope with the loss of Lionel Messi, who will be sidelined for a couple of months due to injury. Here are two choice quotes:

Leo had already had two muscular problems. He had come off an unprecedented marathon of matches. Frequent injuries are statistically predictable given the level of physical effort and Leo is having a spell of more predispositions to injuries.

[...]

Messi is a 10 in the artillery. Many times he breaks down the other team's defence and goes after it. This function was assigned to me and Cesc, always working under the hypothesis of a possible loss of Messi and so this could be faced in a way that was the least traumatic.

With vocabulary and syntax like that, Neymar seems perfectly suited to help pen high school science books. Granted, this kind of thing happens all the time when Google translate meets foreign sports journalism, but why spoil the fun? The world is a better place with a genius Neymar.

[ ESPN FC]