Neymar thriving under the tutelage of Lionel Messi at Barcelona

Barcelona could unleash their all-South American forward line in Saturday's Clasico against Real Madrid -- Luis Suarez showed few signs of ring rust when he tuned out for Uruguay recently. The logic behind his signing would seem to lie in a recognition that, at the age of 27, Lionel Messi may be coming to the end of or even past his athletic peak. Rather than being the goal scorer, in the future his fabulous technical ability is likely to mean that he operates a little deeper, threading through...
the killer passes for Suarez -- and, in a partnership that is already looking very promising, for Neymar.
Ronaldinho recently commented that a few years ago he took Messi under his wing and helped him on his way to become the best in the world, and that now the time had come for Messi to carry out the same function with Neymar. At the moment the combination is still Messi-Neymar. But the order of importance could well be in the process of altering, because the young Brazilian is now really picking up steam. He has the first season in Europe, inevitably one of adaptation, under his belt. He seems very happy in his current surroundings and the responsibility of being the new captain of his national side seems to be sitting very nicely -- he scored all four goals as Brazil beat Japan last week, bringing his international total up to 40, an astonishing figure for a player of just 22 years of age.