Neymar's Paris Saint-Germain and Brazil teammate Marquinhos says it will be "hard" for his club to keep hold of the forward amid mounting pressure from both Barcelona and the player to sell him back to the Catalan outfit.
There have been suggestions that Neymar has vowed to never play for PSG again and could go on strike in order to force through his switch back to the Nou Camp , where he left in a world record deal in the summer of 2017.
The 27-year-old is currently out with an ankle ligament injury, and is missing his side's Copa America campaign in their own country.
And while Marquinhos hopes he'll stay in Paris, he suggested that he wasn't too confident it would happen.
“It's difficult to recruit a player like him into your club and it's hard to keep him, but I hope he'll continue with us," he told L'Equipe .
“He is an important player, he's also a friend, a guy I love, and I really hope he'll stay.
“We have not talked about his future, I guess there are already a lot of people who only talk to him about it.”
Neymar visited the Brazil team hotel prior to Saturday evening's clash against peru, which. they won 5-0.
“He's a friend, so we just wanted to know if he was feeling better, mentally and physically,” added Marquinhos, who has also been the subject of transfer interest this summer, with Juventus rumoured to be considering him prior to moving to the head of the race for Matthijs de Ligt.
“He can make movements with his foot, he can already hit the ball a little at home.
“At the beginning of this he was really sad but today he is better, and that's why it made us happy to see it.”
