Manchester United vs PSG: How the barging, booing and bottling pushed Angel Di Maria far beyond United's level

The Argentine finally delivered at Old Trafford, and in more ways than one

Miguel Delaney
Chief Football Writer
Wednesday 13 February 2019 10:20 GMT
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admits PSG were 'a level up' from Manchester United

It was a moment that genuinely enraged Paris Saint-Germain, and had entirely the opposite effect than intended for Manchester United.

It may even have inadvertently been the winning of this game at Old Trafford. That was late in the first half of this Champions League last-16 first leg, when Ashley Young barged into Angel Di Maria, and sent the winger flying into the advertising hoarding. PSG manager Thomas Tuchel said he didn’t think it was “on purpose”, but that it was “not necessary”. Many in his staff felt worse about it. Di Maria certainly felt worse.

The Argentine lay there in pain getting treatment, United fans mocking him, in what was just a humiliating moment.

Therein lay the danger, because Di Maria was the primary problem for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side for the rest of the night. His quality from set-pieces brought the first goal. His brilliance on the break produced the second.

That ability, really, had been released.

The brutal reality was he responded in a way no one at United expected, and it badly caught them out.

You could certainly sense the thinking of the supporters goading Di Maria. This was a former player who never wanted to be at United, and - much worse - made that clear with so many supine performances, before leaving as soon as he could having made no impact. You could thereby sense the thinking of Young, and the rest of the United team. This was a player they felt produced those awful performances precisely because he didn’t have the personality for it. From the off, they felt he just “couldn’t hack” playing for United. “Fanny”, notoriously, was one common description.

It was entirely logical, then, that his former teammates would look to effectively bully him out of the game.

It’s just they likely, and ironically, went too far.

Because, even if it is true that Di Maria is a sensitive soul - maybe even meek - you can only push such characters so far. Especially characters that have successfully come through the hugely macho culture of Argentine football. What they really don’t like is being affronted, humiliated, emasculated.

This was surely how Di Maria felt at the moment he lay by the side of the pitch, something that Tuchel touched on afterwards.

“The guy is very competitive, like all South American guys, and if you tease him it does not make him weaker of course,” the German said, before admitting the crowd reaction also struck him. “But it was kind of a hard time, and I was a bit surprised… he maybe wanted to show too much. Not calm enough in the first half, but he stepped up in the second half.”

Di Maria was left hurt by the encounter with former teammate Young

In other words, very shortly after Young had levelled him.

It also turned the game into an engaging personality play, not least because it was specifically Young that also forced Di Maria out of the United team in the first place back in 2014-15. Here we was now looking to force him out of the game.

It just brought out Di Maria’s force of personality.

He finally delivered at Old Trafford, and in more ways than one. There was first of all the quality of that cross for Presnel Kimpembe.

Di Maria came back stronger

There was certainly force in his celebration. Di Maria threw every boo back at the crowd and showed they had got to him, as he shouted back “fuck off putas”. The fact some of it was in English, a language he never learned, made the message all the clearer. He took something from his time at United, then.

Di Maria soon after had a bottle thrown at him. United will likely face sanction for that, but what will hurt some of the supporters more was the player’s reaction. Di Maria picked the bottle up, and mockingly pretended to drink from it.

That was already turning the situation on its head, but it also turned an image - and a perception - on its head. Here was Di Maria showing bottle and more than bottle.

There were spells in the second half when Young just couldn’t get close to him. Such was the chasm in ability and application that it at times seemed a joke that this improvised right-back was once keeping a player like Di Maria out of the United team.

Di Maria ended up with the last laugh

It emphasised there was more to his time at Old Trafford than him just not being able to take it. It also emphasised that there is more to Di Maria.

It turns out barging him, booing him and trying to bottle him wasn’t such a good idea. It all pushed him too far, and a level far above United on the night.

So badly losing face likely led to Di Maria to so convincingly winning the game.

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