Paris Saint-Germain may have secured their sixth successive win at the start of the Ligue 1 season with a 2-0 victory over Lyon on Sunday, but it appears all is not well.
Not for the first time, world-record signing Neymar and Edinson Cavani were seen disputing who should take a penalty.
The Brazilian forward earned the spot-kick with his side 1-0 up, but his attacking teammate insisted on taking it, clearly to Neymar’s annoyance.
Nobody told Cavani that Neymar gets to take PSG penalties now 😂 after this, Neymar might get first dibs next time! pic.twitter.com/HbnMDxqci2
— Goal (@goal) September 17, 2017
The pressure was on Cavani, and he saw his penalty saved by Lyon goalkeeper Anthony Lopes, somewhat vindicating Neymar’s protests.
And it wasn’t the first disagreement of the game. Cavani had earlier set his sights on a dangerous free-kick, only for Dani Alves to wrestle the ball from him and hand it to Neymar.
Cavani wants to take a PSG free kick, but Dani Alves has the ball and he wants his BFF Neymar to take it 😭 pic.twitter.com/JZQzg6Teu4
— Goal UK (@GoalUK) September 17, 2017
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PSG boss Unai Emery, unsurprisingly, called on the two players to come to a “gentleman’s agreement”.
“The penalties are to be struck by a few players, one is Cavani and the other is Neymar,” Emery said, quoted by FourFourTwo.
“It takes a gentleman’s agreement on the ground to hit the penalties. Afterwards, we will arrange internally for the penalties that are coming in, because I think both are able to score them, and I want the two to alternate in this exercise.
“If there is no agreement, I will decide. I do not want it to be a problem for us.”
On the victory over Lyon, he added: “We respect the championship, and last season we suffered both matches against Lyon. Today [Sunday] I wanted to win with less difficulty, but I recognise the reality, we must learn to suffer and win with difficulty.
“Of the 90 minutes, the team deserved to win. Lyon had opportunities, but over 90 minutes we did more than them.”