DPA/Teresopolis
Brazil star Neymar says he can forgive Colombia defender Juan Zuniga for the challenge which fractured his vertebra and ended his World Cup.
“If he had hit me two centimetres further in the middle I could be sitting here in a wheelchair,” a tearful Neymar told a news conference at the team’s training camp on Thursday.
“Everybody who understands football knows that a foul like that is not normal.”
Neymar said he could always defend himself against tackling “but if my back is turned on someone I haven’t got a chance of protecting myself.”
However the 22-year-old Barcelona striker says he can forgive Zuniga and feels no anger towards the player.
“Yes, I would forgive him. I don’t feel any anger, no hate, nothing,” Neymar said.
Zuniga phoned him the next day to say it was not his intention to cause an injury.
“I wish him the best, that he is happy and has success in his career,” Neymar said.
Neymar is now able to walk and appeared at the team’s training camp at Teresopolis wearing the yellow Brazil shirt signed by teammates.
He said the last week had been “one of the worst in my life - it was worse then I could ever have imagined.”
The pain of the national side’s 7-1 World Cup semi-final defeat to Germany on Tuesday would be felt for a long time, Neymar said.
“Of course it hurts, it will hurt for a long time but it will go away,” he said in his first public comments since the injury ended his World Cup.
“Better days will come and we will be doing everything to bring joy back to the Brazilian people and above all to our faces,” he said.
Neymar was carried off on a stretcher and taken to hospital after the challenge by Zuniga in the quarter-final victory.
He visited the training camp on a stretcher briefly on Saturday before being flown away in a helicopter. He was greeted warmly by teammates and coach Luiz Felipe Scolari on Thursday at the Granja Comary team base.
Brazil play the Netherlands in Brasilia Saturday in the match for third place, and Neymar said he would try to help his teammates.
“We have cried all we have to cry, and now we will try to play on Saturday and win the match,” he said.
The team will have to treat the match “as if it is the final and end the World Cup smiling.”
