The Curious Case of Angel Di Maria
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| Angel Di Maria's wonder chip goal @ Leicester |
Let
me be frank and get straight to the point. I will be both shocked and appalled if Manchester United even entertains
the notion of selling Angel Di Maria this summer. Yes Di Maria, the same Angel
Di Maria who United broke the British record to lure away from Real Madrid for
$70+ million. The same Di Maria
who not only was the UEFA Man of the Match in the 2014 Champions League Final in
which Real won La Decima, but the same Di Maria who also starred alongside Lionel Messi for Argentina
in helping lead the Albicelestes to the 2014 World Cup Final in Brazil. Now keep in mind, this is also the same
Di Maria who started out his career at Manchester United on fire! He scored his first goal off a freekick on his home debut, formed an immediate kinship with the Captain, Wayne Rooney, on the pitch, and scored what turned out to be the #3 ranked goal of the
season by the Match of the Day pundits.
His wonder goal, a cheeky chip at Leicester in September & shown above, proved just
what type of talent, ability and skill the Argentine was capable of and just how much promise and
value he showed for the future.
The signing of Radamel Falcao was exciting but the day United lured Di
Maria away from Real Madrid almost broke Twitter and the Internet altogether.
You
have to understand something first of all. Transfers like this never seem to happen in United’s favor!
In years past, it has always been United selling our best player to the Madrid
giants for some exurbanite transfer fee, almost as though we were just a feeder
club for the Spanish giants. The
fact that Ed Woodward was able to convince Di Maria to leave everything he had
accomplished in Madrid behind, to join a club in Manchester United who would
not even be competing in Europe that upcoming season, was seen by many as a
miracle! The one person who United
fans had to thank for this was none other than Cristiano Ronaldo. The United legend, and still fan
favorite to this day, was approached by Di Maria for advice regarding
Manchester and what to expect.
Simply put, Ronaldo said that if you are going to leave Real Madrid, the
only other club in the world that you should go to is Manchester United! That was all Di Maria needed to hear
and with that, the deal was done.
To make the deal even that much sweeter, Di Maria was given the famed #7
shirt, worn by club legends like Robson, Cantona, Beckham and of course
Ronaldo. This wasn’t meant to put
added pressure on the young star but to show him that United felt he was of the
highest quality and should be mentioned in the same breath as all of those Manchester
United legends who came before him.
As
I said above, he started the season off with a bang, dazzling fans with his
wide array of assists and goal scoring abilities. Unfortunately, as with most new signings, he eventually hit
a lull. A few minor injuries here
and there kept him out of Louis Van Gaal’s side for a few matches and it was
difficult for him to fully regain that amazing form we had seen at the start of
the season.
Without
a doubt though, one terrifying event in his personal life would go on to affect
him both on and off the pitch for the remainder of the season. On January 31st, around 7:30
pm, just hours after Di Maria had starred in United’s 3-1 defeat of Leicester
at Old Trafford, he sat down for dinner at home with his wife and young
daughter. It was not soon after
that three armed burglars attempted to break into his home using scaffolding
poles and trying to smash through the patio doors. Fortunately for Angel and his family, they always kept the
alarm set even when inside the home so once the alarm sounded, the would-be
burglars immediately fled. Manchester
United immediately deployed a full detail of bodyguards and security to the player’s
home and whisked them away to the Lowry Hotel for safety. It was their that his family would
remain for some time as his wife no longer felt safe at the residence and
preferred not to return to their Cheshire mansion under any circumstances. United have continued the security
detail for as long as Di Maria and his wife have deemed necessary, for their
own safety and comfort. It goes
without saying, but you don’t want your most prized asset to have anything to
worry about off the pitch that in turn would affect his performance on the
pitch. Unfortunately for club, a
situation like this requires a special set of circumstances and must be handled
with the utmost care and respect for the family. It was obvious that the attempted break-in affected Di Maria
dramatically and his demeanor and performance on the pitch in the weeks that
followed served as proof. You
can’t blame him one bit, when I know if I was faced with a similar situation,
where my job required frequent traveling and time spent away from my family,
their safety and well being would be of my utmost concern.
After the events that
transpired at the end of January, there was a noticeable decrease in Di Maria’s
performance on the pitch. He often
found himself on the bench with Louis Van Gaal preferring to start Ashley Young
in Di Maria’s regular left wing position.
It goes without saying that when you are on the bench, no matter what
the reason, there is going to be some disappointment and angst, especially when
you are a player the caliber of Angel Di Maria. Couple that with the nagging hamstring injuries that would
seem to creep up at the most inopportune times, and it just seemed as though he
couldn’t catch a break for the majority of the 2nd half of the
season. The fact that Ashley Young
was playing phenomenally in his place certainly didn’t help matters for him and
the only way he was going to regain his place in the starting XI was through
his effort and hard work put in on the training pitch. Di Maria was in the lineup last weekend
for the season finale away at Hull, a meaningless game for United who had
already secured 4th place and Champions League football for next
season, but a monumental game for Hull who faced the guarantee of relegation to
the Championship with a loss to United.
In what seemed to be Di Maria’s season in a nutshell, he felt a twinge
in his hamstring 20 minutes into the first half, and was substituted for Adnan
Januzaj. After the game, Van Gaal
said he felt it was smart of Angel to not try and risk anything with his
hamstring that had already given him so much trouble, but that he thought the
injury was minor and nothing too heavy.
Obviously he will now have some time off for Holiday and be able to rest
and re-cooperate before heading off to the Copa America with Argentina in June.
Side Note: due to their Copa America
commitments with Argentina, neither Marcos Rojo nor Angel Di Maria will be
apart of Manchester United’s Summer Tour of the United States in July.
Now
we get to the curious case of Angel Di Maria and what has most likely caused many United
fans so much worry over the past few weeks.
Rumors have swirled all season that Di Maria supposedly preferred Paris
St. Germain to United last summer when he chose to leave Real Madrid but due to
Financial Fair Play, PSG simply was not an option. Di Maria has personally said all of the right things, and
that he loves the club and is really enjoying his new life in Manchester. However there are all sorts of
conflicting rumors coming out this week about Di Maria putting in a transfer
request, Di Maria wanted to leave United for PSG, LVG saying that they would
only allow Di Maria to leave if he personally asked to leave, etc etc. Then there are reports to the contrary
quoting Marcos Rojo, who is Di Maria’s closest friend on the team, saying that
they both are still taking English classes together in an attempt to try and
adapt better to their lives in England, and Rojo has no doubts that his friend
will be back with Manchester United next season. This is where the confusion comes in on my part, and so I
often take to Twitter or Facebook to try and get answers from some fellow
United supporters/friends who live in England and understand the ways of the
newspapers and tabloids across the pond.
Here in the United States, tabloids do not publish anything regarding
sports unless it is something involving an athlete and some type of
scandal. Here in the States, we
look to websites like ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, etc for our
news and updates on trade/transfer and free-agent speculation. It seems to me that in Europe, and not
just England, any type of rumor or speculation is published no matter how
outlandish that particular rumor may be.
I know much of this is probably just done to drive traffic to their
particular site and increase clicks and page views, but it absolutely baffles
me that almost everyday there is some new outlandish rumor of who Manchester
United are going to sign this summer or who they are going to sell. No wonder so many people I interact
with on Twitter call the Transfer Window “Silly Season.” I can’t think of a better way to put it
because 99% of the rumors I read are just that: silly! What this had to Di Maria is simple, as
I’m sure Paris St. Germain are interested, and would love to add a player of
his caliber to their club. Trouble
is there's a whole host of clubs throughout Europe who would love to add Angel
Di Maria to their club as well. That
doesn’t mean any of this is going to happen.
What
I hope and frankly what I expect to happen this summer is for Angel Di Maria to
go on holiday, enjoy time off with his family, play well for Argentina in the
Copa America, enjoy some more time off, and then join up with his Manchester
United teammates at some point in late July or early August to prepare for both
the Premier League season, and the huge Champions League qualifying round that
will take place at the end of August.
Unless I hear from Mark Ogden or Jaime Jackson otherwise, I fully expect
Angel Di Maria to be in Louis Van Gaal’s starting XI for the opening weekend of
the Barclays Premier League in August as well as the qualifying round of
Champions League. As I stated from
the beginning, I just don’t see any situation in which Manchester United sell
their biggest transfer ever, after just one season with the club. Angel Di Maria is a world-class player,
as evidenced by not only his MOTM in last years Champions League Final but also
his inclusion in the FIFA 2014 XI World Team Of The Year at the Ballon d’Or ceremony
in Zurich. Clubs don’t just let
players like that leave, for any reason.
Thus a huge club like Manchester United definitely will not let that happen!
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