© Getty Images “I enjoy talking about football, about what players do on the pitch… If I think something, whether it’ll go down well or badly, I’ll always say it. I’m a free man and free to give my opinion too.”
So said Dani Alves to FIFA.com in January 2016, and plenty of those reading the Brazilian’s words would have been nodding their heads in agreement. With top-level footballers ever more wary of adverse headlines, it is always refreshing for supporters when someone from the beautiful game strays from the well-trod territory of clichés and banalities.
FIFA.com has been fortunate in that respect over 2016, with many major figures having proved ready and willing to share candid and often illuminating views and insights. Arguably the most famous footballer of all, Lionel Messi, helped establish that trend at the start of the year when he told us of his as-yet unrealised ambition to play for a club side in Argentina.
“It was always my dream when I was a boy,” he explained, “though..
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