How Barcelona stars Neymar and Lionel Messi are linked by the Costa family
Chemistry on the pitch, assists, harmony in the locker room despite a complicated period, this is the season that Messi and Neymar have connected. Between these two "roosters", the No 1s of Argentina and Brazil respectively, there is a link. Two members of the same family, the Costa family. Pepe, at the club since 2003, and his son, affectionately known as Alvarito. Each separately performs their professional duties, but both are intimate friends with the cracks. Pepe for Leo and Alvaro for Ney.
Pepe Costa has become Messi's man. He joined under Sandro Rosell in July 2003, where he had been the Barca man's faithful squire, at Nike. He started in club at the now defunct office of player services, created in the image of NBA clubs to help the players overcome various issues - being their babysitters, essentially. Pepe is one of the few who has survived the change of management from Laporta to Rosell, to Bartomeu. He has always been in the locker room. Advised by Txiki Begiristain, Pep Guardiola kept him onside and he eventually won Leo's confidence, which is something few people have been able to do. One of the others was Juanjo Brau, his shadow at both Barcelona and with Argentina.
Messi cut ties with Brau, as is well known. And into the space came Pepe Costa. Right now he's the unofficial spokesman of the Argentine, his interpreter to the outside world. Not just with the team, but for his whole life. Since Jorge Messi, his father, has taken up residence in Rosario, the level of confidence between Leo and Pepe has increased still further. Therefore, the Argentine took it as an affront when the club wanted to dismiss Pepe Costa earlier this season. Without Cesc Fabregas and Jose Manuel Pinto, two previous allies, Messi would have been in isolation.
Alvaro Costa, the "Toiss catalan"
He came on to the scene via Nike, where his father worked. When Neymar was signed in May 2013, the club devised a plan to help him adapt to life in Barcelona. They also wanted to prevent freeloaders from getting in and bad companies. Neymar has never been Ronaldinho, but the shadow of the excesses from that player's personal life still amazes at Barcelona. The Catalan giants have been working with Nike since 1998, and they have been sponsoring Neymar himself.
The Spanish subsidiary of Nike takes care of Neymar now. The quality of the services offered, as well as personal attention, is increasing exponentially. Like the great stars of world sport, Neymar will have someone from the company as his "henchman". In the case of Cristiano Ronaldo it's Portuguese Ricardo Regufe, already good friends with the Real Madrid star.
Albert Baronet, from the Nike offices in El Parat, decided that Alvaro Costa should be the person who is with Ney. Costa Jr has the advantage of being from the same generation as Ney, also speaking in fluent Portuguese from his childhood in Rio de Janeiro, where his father worked with Rosell.
"Alvaro has the role that his father did with the Brazilian team," someone close to Neymar told Sport, and he was dubbed the "Toiss catalan". Neymar, his family - mainly his father and sister Rafaella - welcomed the "Toiss" (fleece) with open arms. A professional with Nike, focusing almost exclusively in Neymar, has added a close friendship. Today they are inseparable, in Barcelona, on international business and even on holiday, as they were seen this Christmas in Brazil. Neymar trusts him with aspects of his personal life (eg. his love life), which he does not share with his father. Pepe Costa and Dani Alves were the first who came to Messi to talk about Neymar while the club was trying to sign him. Rosell had told Jorge Messi that the Brazilian was going to come.
Between 2011 and the move in 2013, Pepe Costa met with Neymar many times, taking advantage of the presence of both in national team friendlies in Europe. Leo, who is not exactly outgoing, received his new strike partner with a certain coldness and distance. He did not see sincerity and sympathy in the Brazilian offering his friendship. In the environment of the "cold war" that Messi has been having with the Barcelona board, he saw Neymar as having arrived to move him from the throne.
The numbers involved in "Operation Neymar" published by the club when the case reached the high court did not help create a good context, because it had shown that the club had not been entirely honest when improving Messi's contract (before the last renewal). Last season, Neymar, when you include the agreements with his father's companies, earned more than Leo.
And Pepe Costa, as the sole interlocutor of Barcelona that Leo trusted, was working long-haul, for the benefit of Messi and the sports directors. Eventually Messi saw that Neymar was here to help him, that they were perfect matches for each other, and that the friendship was sincere. This season the duo has exploded. The best for Barcelona fans is to see them both laughing and celebrating together, covering their mouths to avoid being overheard by prying cameras. Then later each of them will go back to their respective Costa and can discuss whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that neither father nor son will divulge any of their concerns or secrets.
