Many of Di María’s long-term admirers regretted his failure to confirm the good impression made by a bright start to his Old Trafford career. His resurgence in the Copa América, when his two goals against Paraguay on Tuesday helped Argentina to Saturday’s final against Chile in Santiago, will have felt like a vindication.
This was a glittering return to form. Everything Di María did at his best, he was doing again. Once more he was looking like a player capable of seizing a big occasion and making the difference.
In Beijing, seven years ago this week, I watched him score the only goal of the Olympic football final between Argentina and Nigeria, at the age of 20. Thirteen minutes into the second half he sprinted on to a pass stroked behind the full-back by Lionel Messi and, in front of a crowd of 89,102 in the Bird’s Nest, chipped the ball calmly over Ambruse Vanzekin, the west African side’s goalkeeper, presenting victory to Diego Maradona’s team.
Di María was a Benfica player then, having moved to Portugal a year earlier from Rosario Central, his hometown club, for a fee of €6m. Two years after the Olympic triumph he was on his way to Real Madrid. This time €25m changed hands, but over the next four seasons at the Bernabéu no one was ever given reason to think that the sum represented poor value. Even when he got himself sent off in the 31st minute of extra time in the final of the Copa del Rey against Barcelona in his first year, he had already provided the cross from which Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winner.
After a difficult start to his second season, he had fully re-established himself by the time the team won La Liga. In his fourth season in Madrid, after Carlo Ancelotti had replaced José Mourinho, he topped the league’s table of assists and was named man of the match in the Champions League final, when Real beat Atlético Madrid 4-1. It was his dribble and shot in the 20th minute of extra time that provoked the rebound headed home by Gareth Bale to give Real a 2-1 lead.
These extra-time interventions are no coincidence. Among Di María’s virtues is a refusal to give up. He may not be the most elegant of players, or the most efficient in terms of statistics, and his relatively unphotogenic angularity may even have been one of the reasons why Florentino Pérez decided to replace him with the baby-faced James Rodríguez last summer – the president’s most misguided decision since the offloading of Claude Makelele in 2003. But Di María knows that, as long as the game is in the balance, it’s never too late to strike a decisive blow, and his athleticism gives him the capacity to act on that belief.
The quintessential Di María moment arrived in São Paulo during the 2014 World Cup finals, when Argentina struggled to beat Switzerland in the round of 16. In a notably poor match, a statistic showed that he had lost possession no fewer than 51 times for Alejandro Sabella’s side when, in the last 10 minutes of extra time and with Argentina starting to despair, he suddenly hit a couple of fierce long-range shots, the first tipped over and the second deflected away from goal. And then, in the 117th minute, he swooped in from the right to accept Messi’s pass and strike the sweetest of first-time shots with his left foot inside the far post.
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