Pelé: "Neymar needs to get to Zidane's level"

Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 by Marca.com

Pelé:

Pelé believes that "faced with Neymar's indecision about whether to go to England or Spain, the best option for him was Barcelona". Talking about the differences between the Brazilian player and Messi, "They are different players that make everything look simple. Messi was trained in Europe from 14 or 15 years old and has more experience. Neymar's style is different, both are very skilful and both make their team very strong", he added.

For Pelé, Neymar's joining Barça will give him considerable experience ahead of the World Cup. "European football is different to Brazilian football. They are stronger, they mark more closely, and that's going to be Neymar's biggest challenge", he pointed out.

In his opinion, Neymar "needs to get to Zidane's level, a very complete player and one of the most recent great names in world football". "He's going to learn a lot from this season in Europe. It will be good for him and also for Brazil. There are some hurdles he has to overcome like playing in a World Cup and improving his heading skills, but I would like him to be as lucky as I was", he added.

Pelé talked about Cristiano Ronaldo's options for winning the Ballon d'Or and gave his opinion on Mourinho. "Cristiano is a player who can finish, but Messi was a clearer choice. I think he deserved it based on his team's successes. If it was down to me, I'd like Cristiano to stay on at Real because he's more or less settled. I like Mourinho a lot, but no-one's 100% perfect", he concluded.