Angel Di Maria has walked Lionel Messi's road to World Cup glory alongside him
The first person Lionel Messi passed the World Cup to after lifting it aloft on the podium of the Lusail Stadium was Angel Di Maria – the two of them (69 years between them) have walked the road to glory together ever since winning Olympic gold in 2008.
It was Di Maria who got the winner that day 14 years ago in a 1-0 win over Nigeria from a brilliant through ball from Messi.
Read also: Top 101 Football Players In World Cup 2022 Qatar
Read also: 10 best teams to win World Cup 2022 Qatar
- Advertisement -
They had already won the Under 20 World Cup together and what they both wanted was the big one – their incredible longevity meant they have managed it well over a decade later.
Di Maria was balling his eyes out through most of this epic victory – he started crying when he scored Argentina's second – and he deserves to go down as one of the greats. Why ever were Manchester United not able to get the best out of him?
Messi was always supposed to be asking Barcelona to sign players during his time at the club and more often than not the stories were wide of the mark but it's true that he insisted on Di Maria during his final years at the club and only Paris Saint-Germain's refusal to sell – much less to Barça - stopped it happening.
- Advertisement -
When Messi moved to Paris he met with Di Maria in Ibiza a few weeks before, although at the time it appeared PSG would only be a Plan B, executed if Barça u-turned on the new deal they were promising.
Messi's family have never completely settled in Paris but Messi at least has been happy close to his friend.
Four years ago in Russia it was Di Maria who scored a spectacular goal for his country against France but it couldn't prevent a 4-3 defeat in the last-16. And that looked like being his, and Messi's, last chance to win the World Cup.
On Sunday night he was the best player on the pitch for an hour as before scoring the first he tormented Jules Kounde and won the first penalty from Ousmane Dembele's clumsy challenge.
When Lionel Scaloni took him off it coincided with the team collapsing. His manager knew that he could play for no more than an hour.
Argentina had done their best to hide how far away he was from full fitness in earlier rounds so as not to reveal clues to team selection – it was always a case of: save him for the final and then for not more than 60 minutes.
Di Maria has always been the man for finals. When he left Real Madrid, Xabi Alonso tweeted: 'We will never forget the zig-zag in extra-time in Lisbon.'
The Argentine winger had set-up Gareth Bale to put Real Madrid head in extra time in the 2014 Champions League final.
He also crossed for Cristiano Ronaldo's late winner in 2011 when Real Madrid won the Spanish Cup final against Barcelona – Jose Mourinho's first season at the club.
Mourinho loved him, and so did Carlo Ancelotti. The Italian coach had a problem when Bale arrived because there was not room for Di Maria, the new signing, plus Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
But he put the never-tiring Di Maria in midfield and he adapted brilliantly, finishing with 22 assists.
He never settled at Manchester United and his wife never hid the fact that she hated his time there. An attempted burglary at their Cheshire home did not help.
There was no love lost between him and Louis van Gaal, who once hooked him before half-time against Sunderland.
The bad blood seemed to spill into this tournament with flashbacks to a 2021 interview when he had said: 'My problem in Manchester was Van Gaal. We won a game 3-0 and I made an assist and scored a goal but the next day in training he showed me videos of the passes I had missed.'
- Advertisement -
His sometimes-anarchic road-runner style never clicked with the Dutch coach's approach.
Time puts most people in their rightful place. It certainly did with Messi on Sunday night and much the same can be said about Di Maria.
He now has a World Cup medal to go with his Olympic gold – just the 14 years between the two and Messi always by his side.
Post credit: Daily Mail
Video credit: ESPN UK