Angel Di Maria had a memorable 2022 World Cup final when he scored a goal and scored a penalty to help Messi succeed against France. When the score was 2-0, Di Maria was taken off the field by coach Scaloni in the 70th minute and without the pressure from the Juventus star’s breakthroughs, France equalized 2-2, creating a great final. history at Lusail.
If it weren’t for Otamendi’s silly loss of the ball to help France shorten the score to 1-2 and the exciting final to a penalty shootout, the player most mentioned after the match at Lusail would have been Di Maria. not Kylian Mbappe, Emiliano Martinez or Lionel Messi.
However, Di Maria has achieved the most important thing, the World Cup championship, in his career. The star born in 1988 did not leave much of an impression on his journey with Argentina in Qatar. He only entered the field at the last minute against Australia, the Netherlands and did not even appear against Croatia in the semi-finals.
But with just an explosive match against France, Di Maria had a memorable tournament. It is worth noting that Di Maria owns a golden plate of impressive achievements in his career and in Argentina, he is probably only behind Lionel Messi.
Di Maria has all the World Cup, Copa America, Intercontinental Cup, Olympic titles with Argentina. At the club level, Di Maria won the Champions League, La Liga with Real Madrid and won Ligue 1 many times while playing for Paris Saint Germain.
However, unlike many players who have little dedication but receive noble titles when in a strong team, Di Maria is a star with a destiny for big matches. That is what both Messi and coach Scolari admitted about Di Maria’s bravery in classic competitions.
Di Maria was the only scorer against Brazil with a technical lob, helping Argentina win the 2021 Copa America, the title they have been waiting for 28 years. The Juventus star along with Dybala and Lautaro Martinez were the scorers to help Argentina defeat Italy in the Finalissima 2022 final (European-South American Intercontinental Super Cup).
At the 2008 Olympics, Argentina won gold medals with a group of talented players like Messi, Riquelme, Zabaleta or Garay. But the only scorer in the final 1-0 win over Nigeria was Di Maria, a player who was only 20 years old at the time.
Di Maria has had 4 World Cups alongside Lionel Messi. At the 2010 World Cup under Diego Maradona, Di Maria had an official position in the middle of the field. However, he did not have a chance to explode when Argentina had many stars in attack besides Messi such as Tevez, Higuain, Aguero.
The 2014 World Cup witnessed Di Maria’s peak form when he shined and shared many of the burdens in attack with Messi. Di Maria scored the only goal in the 118th minute to help Argentina overcome Switzerland in the round of 16. Fans regretted because if Di Maria had not been absent from the final against Germany, Argentina could have been crowned champion in Brazil.
Di Maria lost form at the 2018 World Cup, but he also scored a beautiful goal in Argentina’s 3-4 loss to France in the round of 16. World Cup 2022 fans thought Di Maria had “disappeared”, but he had the match of his life against the French at Lusail.
Argentines praise the genius Lionel Messi and are proud of a group of promising young players in the future such as Mac Allister, Enzo Fernandez or Julian Alvarez. But Di Maria is a star that needs to be recognized, he accompanied Messi in times of failure and shone in the most important matches to help Argentina reach the top of the world.
TyC Sports (Argentina) newspaper confirmed that the 34-year-old midfielder stopped intending to retire from the national team and wanted to continue contributing to Argentina after Coach Scaloni’s team won the world championship in Qatar.
