Angel Di Maria, the polarizing ex Manchester United and current Paris Saint Germain winger is tearing up the football world again these days. Today, in PSG’s 5-1 destruction of fourth-place Angers, the Argentine scored two brilliant goals in the span of just five minutes, or exactly one more goal than United have scored in the first halves of their last eleven home games.
What Di Maria is doing in Ligue 1 right now is parallels the transcendence of Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez in the Bundesliga.
Chicharito left United, and then he goes on to win CONCACAF Player of the Year. His accolade was announced yesterday.
Hernandez just didn’t fit in at Old Trafford. Di Maria had the same problem. Around Halloween he gave a revealing interview to Marca. In that feature, Di Maria admitted that he never wanted to go to Old Trafford, and instead wanted to remain at Real Madrid. He paints a picture that his move to United was supposedly out of his hands, largely. (Here’s more on that)
Di Maria also admitted that the attempted burglary of his mansion in suburban Cheshire was a driving force in his decision to exit. Di Maria told Marca:
“[At United] I started very well but then I had problems with people at the club — I started being left on the bench, then my home was robbed. It all just made me want to get out of there as quickly as possible.”
Di Maria had a lot of issues trying to fit with United. He didn’t handle adjusting to the language and cultural barriers very well. He didn’t quite fit in right in Louis van Gaal’s system either.
There was tension between Van Gaal and Di Maria, the winger also admitted and that it had a tremendous impact on why he decided to leave for PSG. It was an overall ugly situation. In addition to feelings getting hurt, money was lost. Overall it was just a bad scene.
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