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[Awards Review]
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▶ Di Maria bows out as a two-time Copa America winner
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[2024/07/15 ]
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For one final time, Angel Di Maria walked off as a winner. Replaced late in the second period of extra-time as Argentina edged past Colombia 1-0 in the final of the Copa America, the 36-year-old was greeted with waves of applause as the curtain came down on a glittering international career.
With the talismanic Lionel Messi forced off through injury just after the hour, Argentina did just enough to see off Colombia and claim a record 16th continental title. FIFA looks back at the storied career of the man known as El Fideo, his relationship with Messi and some highlights from a memorable spell with the Albiceleste.
 There are videos of a 12-year-old Lionel Messi playing for Newell’s Old Boys that take the breath away. His shirt may be a couple of sizes too big for him and he may be one of the smallest players on the pitch, but that does not stop him from standing head and shoulders above everyone else. Recorded by Quique Dominguez, his coach at the time, these videos are neither high definition nor 4K, the colour fades in and out, and the images are heavily pixelated. Even so, they capture the essence of the young Messi, who gets on the ball and skips past, for the most part, any opponent who dares to stand in his way.
In one video, Newell’s class of 87 are playing a Liga de Rosario match against Torito, one of the strongest teams in the city. Largely devoid of grass, the pitch is enclosed by wire fencing. In the background can be heard the usual cries of the watching parents and there is a host of young children in the background. Some of them are having a kickabout as they wait their turn to get on to the pitch. There is a fair chance that Angel Di Maria – born in 88 and one of Torito’s best players – was among them.
Belonging to different age groups, they never faced each other at the time. Everyone in Rosario spoke about the Newell’s No10 born in 1987, but not so much about the talented, elusive and speedy Torito player, one year his junior. One seemed destined to be a matchwinner, despite his short stature and despite the pain of having to say goodbye to the place he called home, leaving Rosario for Barcelona. The other had to take a different route. Despite his obvious talent, his coaches had their doubts about him because he was too thin and fragile-looking. His mother took him on her bike to training at Rosario Central, in all weathers, in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. Every pothole they hit bashed his self-esteem and knocked the confidence of a young player who was not quite able to fulfil his potential, until one day things just clicked and the world began talking about another left-footed star from Rosario: Angel Di Maria.
From Rosario… “un angel y un rubi” (an angel and a ruby) as Fito Paez, another of the city’s talented sons, sings.
“Even now, at my age and after all the time I’ve spent with him, I still find myself saying sometimes, ‘Oh, I just gave him a bad pass’,” said Di Maria in a 2022 interview with Olé. “And that’s because he’s the best in the world and you know that he hardly ever messes up a pass, hardly ever messes up anything. So, you just want to be as perfect as he is.”
It is perhaps for that reason, for the demands he has always placed on himself, that the man they call El Fideo (The Noodle) is ending his 15-year Argentina career at the 2024 Copa America. The winner now of six titles with his country (the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007™, Olympic gold at Beijing 2008, the 2021 and 2024 Copa Americas, the 2022 Finalissima, and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™), he was one of the few to understand that if he was to meet Messi's standards, he had to set the bar as high as he possibly could.
It is the final of the Men’s Olympic Football Tournament Beijing 2008. Messi picks up possession just inside his own half, turns to the right and sees Di Maria bombing past him on the left. He plays an inch-perfect ball into the path of the flying wide man, who bears down on the Nigeria keeper and audaciously lobs him to score the only goal of the game, one that secures the gold medal for Argentina.
The two are their own team. Messi conjured up another sublime assist for Di Maria in the Round of 16 tie against Switzerland at Brazil 2014, one of the most celebrated of all Argentina goals. Repaying the compliment, Fideo picked out Messi in the group match against Mexico at Qatar 2022, giving the diminutive genius the time and space to fire his side ahead from the edge of the box.
In adversity they grew stronger. An unused substitute in the final of Brazil 2014, Di Maria approached Messi at the final whistle and hugged him in an effort to take away some of the pain, while together they suffered the painful Copa America final defeats of 2015 and 2016. Both triumphed in European club football, meanwhile, and went unquestioned everywhere in the world bar their own country.
Though Fideo did make the squad for the 2019 Copa America, he was left out of the set-up for some time afterwards. Speaking in June 2020, after a fine season with PSG, he tried to remind Lionel Scaloni he was still around: "There's not much to say. I've just had a great season and didn't get called up once. I'm always available, and I'd hoped to play one last Copa America this season (the tournament was put back to 2021), but being left out of every squad announcement has made me lose hope." Little wonder, then, that when he scored against France in Doha tears ran down his face as he wheeled away and looked to the skies in trademark fashion, voicing his thanks. Taken off in the second half, Di Maria suffered on the bench as a dramatic denouement played out before him. When the trophy was eventually won, he shared the tightest of hugs with Messi and cried some more.
Almost as if planned, after the win over France in the final at Qatar 2022, Di Maria gave Messi the warmest of embraces outside Lusail Stadium and said to him: “Being able to play with you is what I always wanted. And I know that all you wanted, from the bottom of your soul, was to win this trophy.”
Di Maria said that in the build-up to the 2024 Copa America semi-final against Canada, Messi asked him to make one last big effort, to produce one more epic performance for Argentina.
“I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I just expressed what I felt at the time, tried for Fide to enjoy himself,” said Messi after the Canadians had been seen off. “I wanted us to give that game to him so he could sign off with another final, which he deserves so much after everything he’s given us. We’ve been together in the national team for all these years, we’ve suffered so many times, and we know what we’ve been through, so to finish it this way is just wonderful.”
Though the two had fun together at Paris Saint-Germain, enjoying each other’s company day in day out with a club, nothing compares to the time they have spent with the national team.
After the final whistle had sounded against France at Qatar 2022 and he had let out the famous cry of “Ya esta” (That’s it) to his watching family, Messi hugged everyone he could on the pitch: the cooks, kit staff, security managers and journalists. There was respect and love in those hugs but they were nothing compared to the one he gave Di Maria when he appeared amid the sea of people. It was an embrace that healed all the wounds, melted away all the anguish, and mended the broken hearts once and for all.
- The origianl text resource is from Yahoo Sports |
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