Neymar has revealed that Pep Guardiola paid him a personal visit in Brazil in an attempt to sign him, despite not managing a club at the time.
Neymar won the 2011 Puskas Award for a spectacular goal he scored for Santos against Flamengo in Brazil, where he picked the ball up on the halfway line and dribbled through the opposition before slotting past the goalkeeper. Still only 19 at that time, he was attracting plenty of attention from Europe - most notably from Barcelona and Real Madrid.
But while he eventually ended up moving to Barcelona in the summer of 2013, he had a decision to make when Pep Guardiola, though without a job in 2012/13, tried to persuade the Brazilian to join him at his next club.
Neymar reveals that Pep Guardiola tried to sign him in 2012
Neymar didn't know where Guardiola would next manage, however, with the Catalan boss initially keeping his future under wraps. After laying out his vision for how Neymar would fit into his next team, Guardiola then eventually told the youngster his next adventure lay with Bayern Munich.
“I almost went to Bayern because of Pep Guardiola," Neymar told Brazilian podcast Podpah. "After I won the Puskas Award, my dad kept calling me at 2am. I answered, he told me to open the door, I was in my boxers.
"It was my dad, Pep Guardiola and the translator! Pep told me: I want to sign you and bring you with me, to whatever club I go to. I will make you the best player in the world. He shows me a paper, opens his laptop, tells me where I’d play.
"Pep also said: if you don’t score 60 goals in a season, I’ll change my name. I was saying, 'Okay, but what team?' Pep said, 'I can’t tell you yet because it’s not out yet', but I persuaded him to tell me. He said, 'I’m signing with Bayern. I know it is a cold city but I will take care of you'. In the end I decided to join Barcelona.”
Neymar's decision didn't work out too badly, as he lifted two La Liga titles, the Champions League and three Copa del Reys during his four seasons in Spain.
Forming part of the feared MSN frontline, alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, Neymar became undoubtedly one of the best players in world football - though he never actually managed to hit the figure of 60 goals in a season that Guardiola quoted.
Instead, Neymar's best tally of 39 came in the 2014/15 campaign, in which Barcelona dominated by lifting the treble.
Guardiola and Neymar have since faced each other six times in total, twice when the Brazilian player for Barca and Pep managed Bayern, and four times when the former was at PSG and the latter has been in charge of Manchester City. Guardiola has gotten the better of Neymar on four of those occasions, with the other two wins for the forward.
