Football news: Neymar 'takes everything to heart', says Thomas Tuchel

The German spoke to his compatriot Boris Becker at the French Open for Eurosport Germany - and compared the qualities of his two stars, Neymar and France's Kylian Mbappe.

“They are similar and different," he said. "Their quality is beyond question. In addition, they have a huge self-confidence - you can feel that - you need that, too, in order to always be able to decide games. This should not be mixed up with arrogance. This needs to be like this if you want to be the “best of the best” and you want to prove this on the pitch every three days.

"'Ney' is an incredibly warm person who cannot perform without a close bond to the coach and his team-mates without feeling really happy. He has antennas for every discord in the cabin, for any kind of criticism - he takes everything to heart.”

On Mbappe, he added: "Kylian is extremely focused, confident and independent for his age - extreme! He even counts his training goals! At some point he even presented himself a shirt with the inscription '100 goals in training'. I then asked him: 'Which goals do you even count? Even those on small goals?' He answered then: 'No, only the big [goals], where a goalkeeper is in it.'

"He is a real number 9 - because you want to have someone who completes the thing and for whom this is important. A super nice guy, very confident - he knows what he needs and what he wants.”