RIO DE JANEIRO, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Paris Saint-Germain's Brazilian forward Neymar has vowed not to change the way he plays despite accusations of showboating.
The 27-year-old Brazil captain rejected suggestions that he should tone down his dribbling and trickery out of respect for opponents.
"It's a bit difficult. It's a little frustrating this dribbling issue," Neymar told football news platform Otro in an interview, the first part of which was published on Wednesday.
"Right now you can't dribble too much because they say it's making fun (of opponents). The first thing I ever did in football was dribble. It's my best feature.
"To this day I still do it to try to score or set up my teammates. But it gets annoying when people talk about it as if it were something bad. It makes me sad because there is a belief that dribbling is bad. But no, dribbling is the essence of football."
Neymar returned from a metatarsal fracture to play 45 minutes in Paris Saint-Germain's 3-1 victory over Monaco in Ligue 1 on Sunday.
It was his first appearance since being trodden on by Moataz Zemzemi during PSG's 2-0 home win against Strasbourg in the French Cup in January. Zemzemi fouled Neymar three times in a few seconds before the No. 10 was forced off the pitch in tears.
After the match, Strasbourg midfielder Anthony Goncalves and head coach Thierry Laurey suggested that Neymar deserved to be injured for humiliating the visiting team's players.
"Neymar, it is his style, but when you want to play like that, you cannot complain when you receive kicks from behind," Goncalves said after the match.
Laurey said: "There are moments when, if you go over the limit a little bit, you have to expect that you are going to get a kick or two. I didn't ask my players to go and kick Neymar, but I understand why the players had had enough of someone who was looking to tease and taunt them a bit."
