Real Madrid to see how old acquaintance Angel Di Maria is faring with Paris Saint-Germain

Ian Hawkey delves into the old, once very fruitful relationship between Angel Di Maria, now at Paris Saint-Germain, and Champions League opponents Real Madrid.

Paris Saint-Germain's Angel Di Maria shown after scoring a goal for the team against Malmo in the Champions League last month. Jacky Naeglen / Reuters / September 15, 2015
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Angel di María says he will not celebrate if he scores a goal for Paris Saint-Germain against Real Madrid in either of their upcoming Uefa Champions League meetings, the first of which takes place in France on Wednesday.

It is the standard promise given by players about their former clubs, if they have had a long, successful spell there, and feel a debt.

Di Maria certainly would regard Madrid with some gratitude for the honours he collected while there: A La Liga title, two Copas del Rey, and the big one, la Decima, Madrid’s 10th European Cup, the trophy they are aiming to retrieve this season after their fourth semi-final setback in five years last May.

The 2014 Champions League, achieved at the expense of Atletico Madrid in Lisbon, was firmly stamped with Di Maria’s name. He was man of the match for most present in Estadio da Luz. It was Di Maria who galvanised Madrid into extra time, when they turned around a game that they trailed in for most of the first 90 minutes.

That, bar a 15-minute appearance in the 2014 Spanish Super Cup, turned out to be the Argentine’s last competitive appearance for Madrid. He was sold to Manchester United that summer after an unedifying Punch-and-Judy episode of claim and counter-claim about the reasons for his departure.

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Madrid let it be known he was asking too much money for a contract renewal; he said he was not, and wanted to stay, pay hike or not. Madrid were in one of their more aggressive transfer-window recruitment drives, and had signed James Rodriguez, the creative Colombian, and Toni Kroos, the young Germany midfielder.

Both had a tough act to follow and it was the same act: Di Maria. In the course of his last 18 months at Madrid, he had shown himself to be quite the versatile, rounded footballer, a creative attacker like Rodriguez, but also a deeper, ball-winner and passer, like Kroos.

His skill on the left wing could thrill, and has done ever since he was a teenager in Rosario, wiry, quick and with a precise and strong left foot. His cleverness on the opposite flank had also been exploited a good deal at Madrid since they recruited him, on the advice of Jose Mourinho, the incoming Madrid coach at the time, from Benfica in 2010.

What Di Maria proved later, and above all in his final campaign with Madrid, was that he had the discipline, toughness and certainly the stamina to take on a deeper role, in a midfield three.

Gareth Bale had joined Madrid at the beginning of that season, which rather set back Di Maria’s case for a place in the front line of a 4-3-3 that included Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

The then coach, Carlo Ancelotti, asked him to set back his position, and found him up to the task. Di Maria also provided more assists than anybody else in the Madrid team that year.

This was the footballer PSG were prepared to invest well over €60 million (Dh250.3m) last summer. Di Maria, who has three goals to his credit, and four passes that have set up goals already for the French champions, has added a dimension to their play: His long passing should benefit the strikers Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi; his skill on either wing and his crossing should be appreciated by Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cavani.

What PSG will not want from Di Maria is the peculiarly Jekyll and Hyde sort of a season he endured in 2014/15. He joined United from Madrid for a British record fee, started well, brilliantly for his first month or so, but by the end of his 10 months in the Premier League had lost his pizzazz.

United sold him at a loss. They, like Madrid, will be curious to see which Di Maria emerges, in the longer-term in Paris.

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