Lisbon (AFP)
Perfect return: Angel Di Maria, suspended in quarters, took his trouble patiently in the Champions League before offering Paris SG his qualification for the final (3-0), Tuesday against Leipzig in his Lisbon garden, where his foot left seems magnified like nowhere else.
To the good memories of the Estadio da Luz. The 32-year-old Argentinian left town ten years ago, but it's like he's never left. In the enclosure of Benfica, club which saw him hatch in Europe (2007-10), the Parisian winger recited his football as in the best hours of his youth, those which had seen him type in the eye of the prestigious Real Madrid.
An off-center free kick to shoot? And here is the left paw of the former Madrilenian, set like a cuckoo to roll the ball up to the angry head of his future captain Marquinhos. 1-0, 13th minute. A sublime offering from Neymar of a heel in mid-flight to be concluded at the penalty spot? 2-0, 42nd. Juan Bernat lonely at the near post? Center millimeter, 3-0, 56th. From the left, again and again.
In one hour, Di Maria displayed all his panoply, without failing, of course, to perform all the defensive folds that his trainer Thomas Tuchel requires of him, and which relieves the Parisian environment of a good part of the defensive work of the first curtain.
- Icardi and Sarabia erased -
This would have earned him an ovation from the stadium when he left (86th), if the closed session had not deprived him of this pleasure. Instead, he got the accolades of a whole staff seduced by the artist, and he will be satisfied.
Because where Mauro Icardi was completely nonexistent Wednesday in the quarter-finals against Atalanta Bergamo (2-1), where Pablo Sarabia had lacked edge against the Italians, Di Maria took up all the challenges brilliantly, six days after having cheated on the stands, deprived of this meeting by an accumulation of yellow cards.
As if the local grass had recognized the finesse of the races, the touch of the ball of the former Rosario Central, winner on this same ground of his last cup with the big ears with Real in 2014, the famous "Decima" of the Madrilenians, after a stunning evening against Atlético Madrid (4-1, ap), where he was the man of the match.
- The end of disillusionment -
As if history should bring him back here, he who has lived, since May 24, 2014, a whole series of disappointments, finals lost with the Argentine selection, in the World Cup (2014) and in the Copa America (2015, 2016 ), to the cursed European campaigns of PSG since his arrival in 2016.
Not to mention his catastrophic stint at Manchester United, where supporters will never have perceived an ounce of talent from the Argentinian, still hated on the side of the Red Devils.
With Paris however, between the "remount" of FC Barcelona in 2017 and the "comeback" of Manchester United in 2019, "El Fideo" had each time shone in the first leg before disappearing in the return, like number of his teammates.
"He's a very decisive player, he has scored a lot of important goals for the club. He won the Champions League (in Lisbon, in 2014 with Real Madrid, editor's note) and played three years at Benfica. is an important player, obviously ", stressed before the meeting his former partner in Manchester, Ander Herrera.
A player who now has his place among the greatest. And it is no coincidence that, on this Lisbon evening, the Argentinian doubled a legend of the game in the statistics: here he is ahead of the former Barcelona Andres Iniesta in the ranking of the best assists in the competition, with 27 units. Since the 2003-2004 season, only two players have done better: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
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