MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Neymar wants Argentina and his friend Messi and Marchesaono to win the World Cup

“I always said I wanted Argentina to get to the final because Brazil would be there but it never worked out like that,” Neymar told reporters.

Brazil forward Neymar has done the unpredictable once again by revealing he will support Brazil's biggest rivals Argentina in Sunday's World Cup final against Germany.

Neymar said he wanted Barcelona team mates Lionel Messi and Javier Mascherano to win football's biggest prize, even if many of his compatriots will be surprised at his open support for their neighbors.

“I always said I wanted Argentina to get to the final because Brazil would be there but it never worked out like that,” Neymar told reporters.

“I still want them there because my two team mates are there, Messi and Mascherano, and I hope they win”.

Argentina will play Germany, who handed Brazil their heaviest ever World Cup defeat in Tuesday's 7-1 semi-final thrashing, at the Maracana on Sunday.

Brazil will play the Netherlands in the third-place playoff match on Saturday but Neymar will miss the game, as he did the semi-final, because of a back injury.

Neymar singled out Messi for special praise and said the World Cup trophy would be a fitting addition to his bulging trophy cabinet.

“He's won almost everything and I think he deserves to be champion and I am cheering for him to be champion,” Neymar said. “He is my team mate and my friend.”

Meanwhile President Dilma Rousseff said that after Brazil’s humiliating 7 to 1 defeat before Germany, she was hoping to relieve some of the pain by crushing Argentina in a third-place match, the founder of the International Medical Assistance company, Edson Bueno, revealed after a meeting with the head of State.

But the President's dreams were shattered once again by Argentina’s victory over Holland in the World Cup semi-final that put the team coached by Alejandro Sabella one step away from winning the title.

“This is what we discussed: If we are to play with Argentina, we have to win by 4 to 0 to at least look a little better,” the business man said after meeting with Rousseff at the Presidential Offices in Brasilia.

Bueno said the head of State is “a little sad” for Brazil’s worst defeat in almost a century but showed confidence, saying she is a “very strong person” that will soon overcome this. “She said to me: ‘We have to move on, we need to motivate the country”.

After the merciless match, Rousseff used her Twitter account to call on Brazilians to unite: “Brazil, get up, dust yourself off and move forward,” she said.