Atletico Madrid may be sitting on top of the table with 51 points from 20 matches, ahead of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla, but LaLiga ambassador Julio Baptista said that a lot can change and teams making fewer mistakes would stand a better chance of lifting the trophy.
In an online media interaction, the former Brazil player and LaLiga star, Baptista conceded that it was a “complicated situation” owing to teams losing players to COVID, and that teams with more players would be able to fight better to reach the top of the table.
He also said the pandemic’s economic impact had crippled club revenues leading to a “big deficit” which in turn came in the way of clubs “signing up more experienced players”.
The Messi question
When queried about Lionel Messi’s intention to move out of Barcelona, Baptista said that it was up to the player and that it would be interesting to see “whether he goes elsewhere”, to a big club like Manchester City, to win more trophies.
When asked to compare Messi with Neymar, Baptista observed that Messi had a much better perspective of the game on field, while Neymar was more dangerous close to the goal.
On Neymar parting ways with Messi at Barcelona, despite being good friends with him, and moving to PSG, Baptista said that it was not about more money, but to face a different challenge, become a better player and possibly win the World Cup.
Brazil’s prospects
Looking at Brazil’s World Cup prospects, Baptista said that players need to understand that “football is quick, and you have to play quick a lot”. He said that Brazil chief coach Tite had done “very satisfactory work till now”. He said that it was more important to develop the game and “achieve a lot of good work”, as in the presence of many highly competitive teams, it was “not easy to win the World Cup”.