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Really good in-depth interview with Di Maria from Daily Mail. Seems to be settling in quite well.
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Angel di Maria is the Angel of the North... he is loving life at Manchester United and says his understanding with Wayne Rooney is just like when he plays with Lionel Messi.
It's Champions League week and rather than finding himself at a big football venue in Spain, Germany or Italy, Angel di Maria is in the grounds of a leafy country hotel in chilly, damp Cheshire.
Manchester United’s latest superstar — the Premier League’s most expensive footballer at £60million — is doing a video shoot for his boot sponsors, adidas.
As darkness begins to fall, this slight, almost frail-looking sportsman in the bright orange boots goes through his repertoire of skills under the bright lights of the cameras.
Di Maria is not where he should be. Real Madrid’s star player as they finally lifted their 10th European Cup in Lisbon last May — the architect of the club’s coveted Decima — finds himself on the outside looking in this season, except he reveals that he is not even bothering to look.
‘No, I don’t watch the (European) matches,’ he smiled. ‘I play with my daughter instead. It’s more important.’
Di Maria is not being flippant. Daughter Mia was born three months prematurely in April 2013 and, for a while, the odds on survival were not good.
It was Mia who was carried round the field by her father after Real’s Champions League final win over Atletico Madrid and it is for her that Di Maria makes the ‘heart’ gesture with his hands after scoring.
A tentative enquiry about the family’s well-being is met with exuberance. ‘Fine! Fine! Fine!’ said Di Maria with a smile. ‘They’re fine now, they’re happy. She was in hospital for two months but there weren’t any further problems, thank God. So, we’re really great and happy to be here in Manchester.
‘I think that, with what happened with my daughter, I realised that there isn’t anything more important than that. You just want to be with your kids in these difficult moments, like the ones my daughter went through.
‘So, no, I don’t worry about the Champions League. I knew when I came to Manchester that I wouldn’t be playing in the Champions League but what I was thinking — what I think now —was that I would do my bit to help my team-mates qualify for the Champions League so that the next year we would be back playing important games. I think that will happen.’
Earlier, in the confines of the hotel, an interview with Di Maria transpires to be rather peculiar. There are nine people in the room, including two translators, a friend, an agent and representatives of his sponsors.
Among it all, though, Di Maria gives off the right signals. He is engaged, leaning forward in his chair, listening to the pieces of English he can, looking up with a certain amount of interest. He is 26 but looks younger, happy to be playing and, as yet, avoiding the injury curse of the Manchester United training ground.
Like many foreign players —especially forwards — in their first season in the Premier League, Di Maria started explosively but has subsequently seen his form level off.
After surviving what must have been a remarkable introduction at Burnley, Di Maria scored three times in his next four games but is now without a goal in almost two months.
‘I’m not worried about that,’ he said. ‘I think things have gone well since I got here. I’m doing all right with goals and assists. There were one or two games when I wasn’t playing at the same level as I had at the start, but . . . well, I guess that’s pretty normal when I’m getting used to things, isn’t it?
‘The truth is that I’m pleased to be here in Manchester. Being here is something really important for me, so from that side of things I’m really pleased. The rest will come.
Di Maria’s physical durability is not in doubt. So slight that his Spanish nickname is Fideo — or ‘Noodle’ — he has been hacked at and kicked since a doctor suggested sport as a remedy for his clumsy restlessness when he was just three.
Asked about the injuries that have struck United’s squad like a hurricane this season — there were 40 at the last count — Di Maria smiled but produced an interesting theory. Fumbling for some wood to touch on his armchair, he said: ‘As far as I’m concerned, a lot of that is all in the head and the way that some people approach it. I am focused and just don’t think about it.
‘Also, I think, when you injure yourself it can also be down to bad luck. I think that I do as much as I can to avoid injury and to look after myself and let’s hope that nothing goes wrong, right?
‘There are footballers who need to train a lot more in order to deal with the physical side of things. I try to go about it as normal and things generally work out OK for me. So, I’m not really worried about that.
'Sometimes you take evasive action, so they don’t kick you. But anyway, I’ve got to get used to it. That’s just how the game is. It’s not just the beautiful game. The reality is that there are strong challenges and you can get caught and you need to get used to it or suffer.’
Di Maria’s football life began peculiarly and accelerated rapidly. Taken to a doctor by his mother Diana as a toddler, she was concerned about his inability to stay still, his tendency to break things in the home.
‘He didn’t say football specifically,’ said Di Maria. ‘He said that I needed to take up some sport in order to be calmer at home. But as I was always at home with a ball, and there was a club only a few blocks from my home, I began to play there, but it didn’t work out — because I’d go there to play and still smash everything when I got home! It’s just the way I was.’
Born in Rosario, 180 miles north of Buenos Aires, Di Maria was identified by the local Torito club at the age of three. A year later, though, the rather bigger Rosario Central took him on, using the donation of 35 footballs as a bargaining tool with the smaller club.
‘Well, I think that all of this — from the 35 footballs, to the €6m when I went to Benfica, then the €30m with Real Madrid, then the €75m for United — I think that as far as I’m concerned, I think of my family, my life’s effort, and I look at myself now and see that this is what I’ve been working for since I was a kid,’ he said.
‘I don’t think that the end of the era has arrived or that I’ve come through that part of my life. I think that I’m going to carry on working and developing in order to make sure I can still play for the best clubs and carry on doing my best. I’m 26 and I’ve still got a lot to give and got a lot of work to do.’
Di Maria’s move from Rosario Central to Benfica came 15 years later at the age of 19. By then he had already lived an eclectic life, schoolwork and football having to take second place for five years to work in the family coal yard.
‘I went to school in the morning,’ he revealed. ‘After that, when I got home, I helped dad with the coal. We had a place behind the house where it was stored. And then, at about 3.30pm or 4pm, I’d get on my bike and go off to train.
‘So yeah . . . going to school, then working with my dad, then on the bike for 30-40 minutes to get to training, then training, then back home . . . it was difficult but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. When you’re mad about football, you do whatever (is needed) to play.’
The record signing’s place in Louis van Gaal’s team at Old Trafford is assured. While other big names such as Robin van Persie and Juan Mata have it all to do to remain relevant, the Argentinian is already a cornerstone along with David de Gea, Daley Blind and Wayne Rooney.
On the day we meet, Rooney — the captain — had been asked by the club’s website to name his dream five-a-side team and Di Maria was his first pick. ‘It’s an honour that he chose me for his team,’ Di Maria smiled when told about this.
‘Playing with him is a pleasure and a point of pride. When I was 15, more or less, I used to watch him playing with United. I admired him and wanted to be like that. Whether it’s him, Giggs, or any of the others, playing with them is something really special.’
Few arrive at United feeling they have seen most things in football but perhaps Di Maria is one of them. A Champions League winner, on the bench for the World Cup final and a young man with the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on speed dial, Di Maria has seen a lot in a short time.
As peculiar as it sounds, the standards he has encountered at United will have been lower. They simply have to be. Nevertheless, his take on his captain is categorical.
‘Rooney is at the top level,’ he said. ‘The other day I was talking to my friend and I said, “Rooney and me understand each other, just like Messi and me in the Argentina squad, or Cristiano at Real Madrid”. I get on really well with Rooney, we get together on the pitch to kick the ball about, to do things. He’s a spectacular player and he’s one of the top players in the game.’
Deep down, Di Maria will know that his time at Real Madrid ended too soon. His four-year spell at the Bernabeu yielded a Champions League, a Spanish title and two Spanish Cups.
Last year was arguably his best, though. He ended the La Liga season with 17 assists. After the Champions League final, former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson presented him with the man-of-the-match award.
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