Angel Di Maria: Breaking Down the Wall (2024) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
1
We're looking at some newspaper clippings
from the time when
Ángel and I were still dating.
His sister Vanesa collected these.
I went with him to Europe, where
the first club he played for was Benfica.
Here's his transfer
to Real Madrid.
And here's the girl that gave
Ángel her telephone number.
You can just see her face,
back behind him!
These things are all behind us now,
but it's fun to have
these memories of them.
Other than the World Cup news,
there's more to know about soccer.
Real Madrid's first acquisition
for next season is now in Spain.
We're talking about Ángel Di María.
The international
player arrived
at the Barajas Airport at 6:10 a.m.,
and will be introduced
at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium
this Friday at 1:00 p.m.
-Are you happy to be in Madrid?
-Yeah, I'm very happy.
We got off the plane,
and we were walking toward the elevator,
and this girl came up
and said, "Here, take my number."
And she handed me a piece
of paper with her number.
I wanted to die. I couldn't believe
that was happening on my first day there.
We'd been together for about a year.
Not long at all. It was all new,
and this was Real Madrid.
She gave me her number,
and I just took it
WIFE
I took the paper from him.
She gave him her number
right in front of me!
She tore up the piece
of paper immediately.
But the whole thing did get us
off to kind of a bad start.
I told him
I was going back to Rosario.
I wasn't going to put up
with this kind of life.
I'm not a jealous person,
but that was really too much.
She did that right in front of me!
It just didn't make sense.
And I was supposed to tolerate
ten years of things like that?
No, no, no. Not for me. Not even a little.
I knew she was already upset.
But then after we got to our room,
she started crying, so I proposed to her.
I got on my knees and I asked her.
"Sheesh,
what am I going to do with this dude?"
He's saying all these things.
"I'll die if you leave me.
You have to stay!"
"I'd die if I couldn't be with you."
"Let's get married. Marry me."
And I said, "No,
I don't want to get married yet! Wait!"
I didn't want to get married yet!
I was just, like, "Slow down."
It was too much too fast.
But, you know, I stayed. I stayed.
This was 2010,
and the next year we got married.
We got a call from them, and they said
they were going to get married in Rosario.
That was something different for us
because we had never been
to a wedding there.
They were super happy.
Jorgelina got to
share that moment with her dad.
That was a big deal for her.
She was the one for me.
That's what I felt at the time.
And thank God, I I chose right.
And the reception party was awesome.
Nobody knows this story
Well, maybe a few people do.
It had a happy ending, though.
ÁNGEL DI MARÍA:
BREAKING DOWN THE WALL
The truth is, getting to know
José Mourinho, that was great.
He was in his prime.
He was definitely one of
the best managers in the world.
To have him be my coach was,
uh, incredible.
This is Ángel Di María's
debut with Real Madrid.
I had no doubts technically.
I had no doubts physically,
because his intensity was
his speed was something without doubt.
What I was analyzing the most
before making the decision
was the personality.
And that kid had no fear.
And Di María finds the net!
Ángel was always, uh,
a very discreet guy.
Very humble, very shy.
And as players we took him under our wing.
I think that all players who arrive at
soccer teams as large as Real Madrid
need some time to adapt to the change,
but Di María only needed
about two or three months.
Everyone in Real Madrid
and at the Santiago Bernabéu
just loved the way he played soccer.
Real Madrid at that time
was not a winning team.
REAL MADRID,
ANOTHER LET DOWN
THE CLUB HAS LOST ITS STATUS
It was a team with years of
of no progression in in Europe,
not winning domestic titles.
We needed really
what I used to call that, um
"no fear mentality."
And I felt that he could.
Xabi Alonso.
What a pass that was!
Such a young guy,
he arrived in Real Madrid,
and, um, immediately he became
the famous three.
In the end there were four.
Cristiano Ronaldo
is now in the box. He could score!
Ángel on the right,
Cristiano on the left,
Gonzalo and Karim alternating in
in the middle.
And they did it for years.
Di María's coming
from the right, looking to cross
Ronaldo scores a goal!
We won
the Spanish Cup that year.
And Real Madrid
hadn't won it in a long time.
Real Madrid
has won the Spanish Cup
for the first time in 18 years.
My second year at Real Madrid
was really important for me
because we won LaLiga.
Barcelona had been winning it
every year up until then.
The truth is, those three years
with the club were amazing.
Mourinho has always had an excellent
relationship with his players.
And as a coach, he helped me a lot,
but he also helped Di María.
He was key
in Di María's development as a player.
From the technical point of view,
I changed nothing.
Um I think it was born with him.
He was developing by himself, playing
probably in the street with his friends.
But football at a high level
is not the same as football in the street.
You have to be a player with a brain,
that understands the game,
that understands the timings,
that understands the strategies.
Football is not a science.
And what I used to say,
that he was a chaotic player.
And, for me,
to become a top player in a top team,
you cannot be a chaotic player.
So, when you're playing for a big team,
we need always to find a balance.
And I think with me he found that
that balance.
Benzema makes a deep pass.
Di María reaches the ball
and makes it into the box!
Di María scores!
We got married in July of 2011.
Part of the wedding involved filming
inside, uh, one of those photo booths.
I want more grandchildren,
I want more as soon as possible.
That happened in July,
and then in December,
he had a heart attack.
My father was dead.
Di María scores!
The Argentine player has had a difficult
week due to a tragedy in his family.
GERMÁN, YOU'LL BE FOREVER MISSED
On that day, our lives changed forever
because that was the same time
that what we wanted
was to welcome Mía into our lives.
Di María
coming in from the right!
He's at the edge of the box.
Looking for a second one.
Goal! Di María scores from the box
and then goes wild!
The pregnancy was smooth sailing
for us at the beginning. It was perfect.
I was due
to deliver on July 4th,
which was coincidentally
his sister Vanesa's birthday.
When we went in to do the ultrasound,
we couldn't see her.
And her face was blocked.
She was turning herself around.
I felt strange. Something wasn't right.
The technician left,
and came back with two doctors.
And they said I needed to be admitted,
um, because I had low fluid levels.
What they found was that there was
a rupture in the placenta.
She had been gradually losing fluids
without realizing it.
I was in my 28th week,
too early for the baby to be born.
But I told Ángel, "I feel like
they need to get her out."
"She'll die if she stays."
"She will die if she stays in my womb.
Take her out."
He told me to wait,
but I said, "She'll die."
The C-section
was scheduled for the 22nd.
If things went all right,
she'd need to stay in an incubator for
two months, give or take.
And she was born.
Mourinho knew
what was going on.
He told me to stay during labor,
but to catch a flight
for the next day's game.
People were talking shit,
all sorts of stuff, but they didn't know.
They didn't know that I went
and left my wife there,
alone in NICU,
and I still had to go and play.
My heart was in two places.
In the game and there.
But that's just how soccer is,
and it's my job, and I'll always
respect it for that reason.
Di María from the right,
he squeezes through!
He shoots from close range!
Goal! Di María!
I still had to travel
with the team, still had to stay focused.
I guess you could say
my life was the same.
Except Except for the fact
I had a daughter in NICU.
We used to visit her every night,
always wishing her sweet dreams
because we knew we knew
she might not be there the next day.
It was No two days were the same.
We stayed in Madrid for a month,
so we could visit
little Mía every morning.
I remember it well.
We would go in to see her and
she was inside that incubator,
full of cables and tubes everywhere.
She was so small
She was no longer than half an arm.
She was that small.
Yeah Yeah
Hi.
Mía was no bigger than a doll.
And you could literally dress
her in doll's clothing then.
Because she was only around
one or one and a half pounds.
But we stayed by their side,
just the way they've always
been by our side,
whenever the going got rough.
Hello, sweetie.
To give birth,
then go home without the baby?
I don't know.
I used to tell Ángel that it felt
like they had stolen her from us.
We used to hold each other
when we left the hospital.
We didn't talk. We were just crying.
We held onto each other and we just cried.
It's impossible to describe.
There are no words for
for
for what our minds and our bodies
were going through at the time.
I think becoming a father is
one of the greatest experiences ever.
No doubt.
But to always know that she
that she might not be there the next day?
There are no words.
By far, I think that was
the toughest moment of my life.
Let's see that smile.
Welcome home!
Then we returned home.
And, yes, I became a mom.
I had spent two months without my baby.
Honey, come here. Come here for a second.
We got home and asked ourselves,
"Now what do we do?"
We were new parents,
what are you supposed to do?
What do you do with this package?
Paint the bird. I'll paint the bunny.
-What's that?
-I don't know.
Pía, that's a marker!
How did I stain my shirt?
The troubles made us
the family we are today, I think.
It helped us build this beautiful family.
To me, that's what matters the most.
-Tell us about the trip to Madrid.
-Whoa, that was a tough one, man.
Just give me a second.
All right, so it's noon on a Sunday,
and I was eating with the family.
And all of a sudden, the phone rings.
It's Ángel.
Ángel never calls, man, you know?
It's all texts. Crazy, ya know?
I go outside, talk to him, he says,
"Hey, man, you good?
Everything okay? Whatcha doing?"
"I'm here at home. We just ate."
He says, "You got
any vacation time saved up?"
-I tell him, "Yeah, sure."
-Of course you did!
A whole month if you want, man!
I'm in for whatever!
I took a flight the next day
and got to Madrid.
And eventually, I get to immigration.
I show 'em my passport, my documents,
and said I was a friend of Ángel Di María.
And they asked me the result
of the Real Madrid-Barcelona game.
Because those two had played
a game earlier that day.
"I don't know. I've been traveling."
-I couldn't check my phone on the flight.
-You could've checked your phone!
The fact I didn't know
made them suspicious of me.
Yeah, he traveled to Madrid
with no luggage,
wearing glasses,
black sunglasses, of course.
You know what they said?
He's a trafficker.
A dangerous man.
They said, "Are you carrying cash?"
Now I'm sweating. And I said no.
I said,
"I got 150 pesos on me, that's it."
Pesos!
"Oh, and that's all you need
for a trip to Spain, huh?"
And I started to hear some
murmuring or something,
and I see Ángel in the distance.
He comes rolling up all casual,
he's got two police officers behind him.
So we get there,
and he's just sitting there,
and he's got his glasses
on top of his head.
I said, "You're chillin' right now?"
"They'll deport you.
You're acting like it's nothing."
He comes right up to me, and he just says,
"Come here," and it's passport, boom!
Off we go! Just like it was nothing!
And I'm looking at the guards like,
"I told you I was his friend!
I told you, but you didn't believe me".
That was my first experience in Spain.
It was wild, man.
Ancelotti is
now Real Madrid's new manager,
replacing José Mourinho.
Despite three excellent seasons,
Mourinho wasn't able to win the coveted
Champions League tournament.
They bought Bale
the same year Ancelotti joined the club.
Florentino's eyes
are on the market.
He intends to
replenish Real Madrid's ranks.
I knew I was on my way out.
We had Bale, Cristiano, Benzema
Uh what was I supposed to do?
I couldn't. It was impossible.
Di María will come off,
and this will be Gareth Bale's debut.
Even at the start,
Ángel wasn't playing every game
because I saw him
as essentially an attacker,
a winger and I also had Bale
and Cristiano in those positions.
But he never
As far as I know, he was never upset
about not playing in every game.
Real Madrid
will make a substitution.
Gareth Bale for Di María.
He's slowly earning his place in the team.
Things weren't going so well
during one home game,
and that's when the "I made
myself comfortable" situation happened.
The clip shows clearly what happened.
Di María looks
at the stands and thinks,
"I'm gonna tell everybody I really don't
like the way I'm being treated here".
Right as he's substituted.
When you get substituted in a game,
you may, uh
Uh, you may not be feeling the happiest.
Everyone thought I grabbed my crotch.
But it wasn't like that.
I was just making myself
comfortable on my way off.
Do I have to be honest, really?
What's done is done.
People mess up all the time,
I messed up plenty of times,
so I just didn't want him to
to go through that,
so I told him he should apologize.
Obviously, he apologized and said,
"I was making myself comfortable."
I apologize,
I didn't mean to insult anybody.
Nobody believed he was being honest.
He was disrespectful toward the fans,
the club and the Santiago Bernabéu.
I'd appreciate it if the Di María topic
could be wrapped up soon
because we have a lot of games to play.
And we need him.
We need Ángel Di María
to perform in every game.
Here's the stadium.
Brings back memories, huh?
Yeah.
Every kid watching the Champions League
with his friends dreams of it.
You dream of playing there someday,
playing at that level,
and experiencing the emotions
and the adrenaline of it.
Lisbon will be
Spanish for a day,
as thousands of Madrid
and Atlético de Madrid fans
have made the trip here
to the Portuguese capital.
Welcome to
the Champions League final,
where Real Madrid will have
its most important game in 12 years
facing off against Atlético de Madrid.
It really turned out to be
an unforgettable day for us
because it was
our first Champions League, you know?
Godín with the header!
Goal! Atlético scores!
Atlético de Madrid
could almost taste victory,
while Real Madrid wasted
every opportunity they had.
It's almost over,
but a corner kick for Real Madrid!
Modrić, Ramos!
Real Madrid scores the equalizer!
Goal!
Di María was the key for getting us that
coveted tenth Champions League trophy.
Di María skipping
past two, three players.
He's there! He shoots at the goalkeeper!
Bale! Goal!
Gareth Bale scores!
I remember the second play,
the one that led
directly to the second goal.
It was amazing. It was key.
That led us to win the trophy.
We were really happy when we won
the Champions League trophy together.
That tenth tournament win
had eluded Real Madrid for so long,
and it was amazing to do that,
to know that we finally made that happen.
It's a big deal to win
the Champions League, and
I remember that
it felt like a dream come true.
It was unique, it felt like
now everything was complete,
and we really enjoyed it.
It took 12 years, but the tenth
Champions League trophy is here,
and thousands of fans
are celebrating at plaza de Cibeles.
Yeah, he was the MVP, he stole it from me.
And the award for best player
in the final, the MVP,
goes to the Argentine Di María.
It's something that you dream of
from the time you're little.
It's something that you really want.
So I feel really happy to have this.
I was going through an exceptional time.
I was playing for
the best club in the world,
and the 2014 World Cup was coming,
so I was just, you know, going all in.
I was in my prime.
2014 FIFA WORLD CUP - BRAZIL
Argentine fans have begun
to swarm the legendary Copacabana Beach.
The 2014 World Cup
was unforgettable in every way.
Messi collects the pass.
He shoots! And goal!
Messi scores for Argentina!
We had a great team.
Messi with the kick!
Using his left leg,
he shot to the far post.
He scored during a free kick.
He did everything.
And there were other even better results.
Argentina-Iran, one-zero!
What a goal at the end of the game!
We kept on winning,
and we didn't lose a single game.
THE ARGENTINE MIRACLE
Argentina has
made it into the round of 16!
Rio is getting closer,
and while many Argentines
may be questioning if they should come,
it's clear that some of them
have already made up their minds.
We were all sure that, um
no matter who we faced,
we'd be able to hold our own.
That we were good enough
to put up a fight against anyone,
and that we'd make it far if we did that.
And we did.
We may have to go to
penalties, but now Messi has the ball!
He passes it to Di María.
Di María with the one-touch,
and he scores!
The way that goal happened,
and the fact that it was
right at the end of regulation,
it was just perfect timing.
It was a dream to score at a World Cup.
And on top of that,
it happened during
an important game of the round of 16.
It really was It was amazing.
Incredible!
Let's go, Argentina!
You're the best, Ángel! You're the best!
And your friends
were all there too, right?
Ángel asked
when we were dropping by and, uh
Of course we wanted to!
So we said yes, and then he said
he had tickets for us for the games.
And he had checked and there was
a flight from Buenos Aires to Rio,
and they had enough seats for all of us.
The moment we got that message
Tell me how it feels ♪
To have your daddy in your house ♪
Everything's ready here
for Argentina and Belgium to face off,
with a spot in the semifinals on the line.
Kompany is marking Messi.
Now Di María with the fake
near the box and he shoots!
Di María seems to be
experiencing pain in his right leg.
He's a nervous person, so his legs
His legs have to do all the work.
That's what I think.
No doctor has told me that or anything.
I say it's because of his nervousness.
He's so nervous,
and his legs are so tight and so tense,
he gets injured
whenever he starts running.
Again, Ángel?
Another injury? This can't be happening.
Of course I heard the talk,
and it was hard for me to cope with.
Every time I got injured,
I felt like I was letting
my teammates down.
That I was letting the team down,
and that's what bothered me the most.
I honestly felt worse about that
than I did for myself.
It felt horrible.
The guy just couldn't handle the pressure,
whether it was the pressure
of being on the national team,
the fans, the criticism, the injuries
I think you're the only one that
thinks that we aren't playing well.
I think we're doing things just right.
We're focusing on what matters,
winning games,
and we need victories
in order to win the World Cup.
-I wasn't watching the sports channels.
-I did all the time.
Are you telling me that you never heard
anybody talking about how Ángel was shit?
That he couldn't handle the pressure,
-he was always injured, things like that?
-Of course.
They were blaming him for everything.
You need to fight back
or ignore what they say,
or you'll be arguing with everybody.
Argentina has reached
the World Cup final again!
It may have taken 24 years,
but the dream is still there!
The World Cup final is
starting to shape up like a celebration.
Thousands of Argentines want to see
Messi and Di María walk out of the game,
holding the World Cup trophy
in their hands.
-He tested it.
-Sure.
He's fine in training,
but feels pain during the games.
Now wait just a moment,
it wasn't like that.
We know this,
Coach met face-to-face with him,
and the kid probably said
he wanted to play.
I remember that we trained
the day before the final
at Vasco da Gama Stadium.
And Ángel was there
and he started training,
and he gave it his best,
he really wanted to play.
I don't know the circumstances
or what was involved,
but it was decided
that he wouldn't be playing.
The doctor brought me a letter
when I woke up in the morning,
and surprisingly it was from Real Madrid.
The team had sent it saying they didn't
want me to play for Argentina in the final
because I wasn't 100% cleared.
He visited Sabella that morning,
and they, uh
Uh, they had a conversation.
And I guess you could say
that Sabella was not feeling convinced.
When Argentina reached the final,
Di María was said to be injured,
and the club sent a letter
to the national team
stating that they felt
he shouldn't be playing.
-Do you remember any of that?
-No.
So, yeah, I tore the letter up.
DI MARÍA IS OU
I remember that he was in my room,
and Mascherano dropped by
to find out what had happened,
and we ended hugging,
and crying, because
we knew how important this was to Ángel.
Here he was, he was so close,
yet he was getting sidelined.
We were so close, the fans were invested.
We had created this new connection
between the team and and the fans.
Today,
we will have a champion!
Will it be Argentina?
It was hard for him
Because here we were,
about to play the World Cup final.
And you never know
if there'll be a second time.
It's very hard just to get there once,
let alone twice.
Götze with the cross
And Germany scores.
With only eight minutes left now
before the end of the game,
this puts Argentina in a difficult spot.
It puts Messi in a difficult spot.
It was It was really tough.
Germany has won
its fourth World Cup.
Just like they did in 2006 and 2010,
the German team has put an end
to Argentina's World Cup ambitions.
We were this close to
winning the whole thing that year.
And the way the dream ended,
especially considering the high
expectations we'd created for Argentina
with the way we'd reached the final
that devastated me.
Serious incidents have
been reported in Córdoba, in La Plata,
and in the capital, Buenos Aires.
Man, I can't believe this.
What's wrong with us?
Tear gas everywhere.
Vandalism across the country.
That's who we are.
We always want to win,
and second place is it's
It's just not enough for us, it's
It's all about being champions.
I'll say it again.
Di María's situation is
the thing that killed us.
We lacked an explosive player
capable of finding the spots,
and then receiving passes from Messi,
and who's capable of placing those passes.
It's a shame, it is.
When he went out, we couldn't replace him.
Nobody could fill his spot!
While we felt
Argentina's defeat as viewers,
it was harder for him to be there,
knowing he couldn't play.
It was really hard for him.
Argentina wasn't meant to win at Brazil.
That's it. It just wasn't meant to happen.
Such is fate.
If he had played, would things
have turned out differently?
After losing
the World Cup final,
Ángel Di María must
now face another challenge.
Di María's days
at Real Madrid are numbered.
Manchester United could
make a move at any moment.
Everybody was high on him right then.
Understandably, given his excellent
performance the previous season, for us.
Neither Ancelotti nor I
really knew what was going on,
but he'd been told that I wanted to leave.
I told him that wasn't the case.
Real Madrid made the best possible offer,
and he didn't take it.
So apparently he wants to leave.
DOES HE WANT TO EARN THE SAME?
People said I wanted
to earn as much as Cristiano.
I don't see how anyone could think that
since Cristiano
had earned the Ballon d'Or.
I'd have to score 80 goals a year.
But that's what the press said.
And people ate it up.
The only one
they talked shit about was me.
No player earns that amount of money
except one, Cristiano Ronaldo.
I never had the chance to speak
one-on-one with Florentino Pérez.
I think that was a missed opportunity,
and that things might have been different
if we'd had that conversation.
Di María's exit signals
the departure
of the last hero of the Lisbon final,
where the club won its tenth
Champions League cup.
There's affection.
Plenty of it, especially every time
I've seen him in person.
Personally, I hold him close in my heart.
We were sad, you know? Because
he is an outstanding player of course,
but this was a close friend,
leaving for another country.
And Ángel Di María has said goodbye
to his Real Madrid teammates.
He's been acquired by Manchester United,
who are said to have already begun
negotiating his transfer with Real Madrid.
And while the transfer has
the potential to earn Real Madrid
around eighty million euros,
the club will have to let go of the MVP
of the last Champions League final.
Ángel Di María has become
the most expensive player
in the history of the Premier League.
2014 - MANCHESTER - ENGLAND
Yes, I'm very pleased that we can, uh
have such a class player in our squad.
I hope
he shall, uh, give us, uh, good results.
Uh
That's a tough one!
He got off to
a really good start in Manchester.
Van Gaal was very welcoming.
It really means a lot to me.
To wear the same jersey that has
been worn before by such legends.
I knew the importance of
Man U player number seven.
I knew who had worn that jersey before me.
It's a big jersey.
If it was me I'd've turned it down.
Di María
comes on to the pitch.
He had a great start.
He was crucial
during the first three or four games.
I was scoring goals,
making assists every game, left and right.
It was all incredible.
Rooney passes to Di María,
who chips the goalkeeper!
What a fantastic goal!
Daddy scores! He scores!
Congratulations, you were
the player of the game in your debut!
Thank you. Thank you very much.
He says "thank you."
Listen up!
I now present to you
Come on!
Herrera, the worm!
Hey, he's a good dancer!
It looked at first
like he was bound to become
another legend at Manchester United.
But things just kind of soured.
Van Gaal was the type of coach
who was very critical
when analyzing his players' actions.
And I found it surprising
that he considered it
unacceptable for Ángel to make
three or four mistakes per game.
Something strange is happening
between Van Gaal and Di María.
We were winning, I was making assists
and scoring, but he didn't mention that.
He only ever wanted
to talk about the mistakes.
Identifying and learning from
your mistakes is crucial, of course,
but given my position as a forward,
I'm bound to make mistakes
because I'm always trying.
My job is to always go for
an assist or take a shot on goal.
It reached a point
where things just got out of hand.
Compared to everyone else on the team,
it seemed like the coach
was being way stricter with him,
and I think most of the players
even thought it was excessive at times.
Eventually, I think all the criticism
ended up undermining Ángel's confidence.
I had sold more jerseys than anyone else
upon my arrival to the Premier League.
And I was the club's
most expensive acquisition,
so I was finding myself
under a lot of pressure.
Really, that year was shit.
The relationship between
Van Gaal and Di María is broken.
Manchester is a city
that gets very little sunlight.
It gets dark very early.
The sun sets around 2:30, 3:00.
Lots of rain.
Coming from Madrid,
which resembles Argentina the most,
Manchester's culture felt very different.
I was struggling to adapt.
One
Two
-And
-Three!
Yeah!
Then in February, around my birthday,
we were coming home after a game,
and we found some people
trying to break into our home.
DI MARÍA'S BRUSH WITH ROBBERY IN ENGLAND
We were returning home with Mía,
who was still a little girl,
and her babysitter at the time, Majo.
As we entered the garden,
I noticed a beam of light.
It looked like a flashlight.
Suddenly, three huge guys
dressed all in black appeared
at the window in front of us.
They were about two meters away.
And just then one of them started trying
to break the window with a club,
just hitting it again and again.
The babysitter rushed Mía upstairs,
and she pressed the alarm button
when she was on her way up.
I didn't know she'd done that at the time.
There was a knife there on the table,
and I was holding
a chair up against the glass.
And I hear Ángel saying,
"One moment! One moment!"
That's all the English he knew!
I was just trying to buy some time
for my family to get upstairs, you know?
Once I got upstairs,
I threw Ángel the wallet
but it only had pesos in it!
I didn't know that!
But later when we were safe, he said,
"What the hell, did you want me to die?
You gave me pesos, not pounds!"
Then there were
four officers and a helicopter.
We don't know if the men escaped,
if the alarm scared them away or what.
But there was snow on the ground,
and the men's footprints
were this huge, like a size 58.
Like out of a movie!
Once we were out of that awful situation,
then I still had
to stay at a hotel for a month
while I was trying
to find us another apartment.
That was
psychologically kind of devastating.
I already wasn't feeling good
because of the whole thing with the coach,
and so this was kind of the last straw.
That day I knew I wanted to leave.
I knew I didn't want to be there.
For his birthday,
which is on February 14th,
I decided I would try to arrange
a surprise visit from
all his friends from Rosario.
When we traveled to Manchester,
it was quite an experience.
It was incredible.
Ángel was away, playing a game.
So I locked myself with Mía
and all his friends in my room,
and then once he opened the door
There was laughing, singing, hugging
He was crying like a baby, all that.
So good.
Unbelievable!
How's this possible?
I'm still speechless, man!
It was quite a feat
to bring everybody there,
and somehow she did it.
She made it happen, and to be honest,
if we put the bad experiences aside,
that was one of my best birthdays.
That was good,
but wait, it got even better,
because later on I caught them all playing
soccer in the hallway at 2:00 a.m.!
They were lucky we'd just gone through
the break-in and Mía wasn't in the house.
If they'd done that
in my house with my girl there,
they'd never hear the end of it!
I remember that I went outside
because we heard some noises,
and, you know, you can imagine
our state of mind at the time,
after what we had been through,
we didn't even feel safe at the hotel.
We were super sensitive to things.
There was a security guard by our door.
We were kicking the ball around,
and Ángel came out wearing his underwear.
He was still kinda shook up,
and he was thinking
someone had come to rob him,
and was trying to break down the door.
So I come out in my underwear,
and the guard was there,
and I ask him, "Good?"
And he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
The next morning,
once we woke up and I asked the guys
what had been going on out there,
they told me they had been playing soccer
with the security guard,
and I was just like,
"Goddammit. It was you guys all along."
Back and forth
from goalkeeper to security guard.
He wanted a piece of the action!
Yeah!
They were all having fun,
and that's okay, it was great.
I remember we were
brushing our teeth after breakfast
when we had one of our last conversations,
and he said
he wasn't coming back next year.
I didn't believe him, and I told him look,
the club just paid what?
Seventy or eighty million euros
for your transfer from Real.
"There is absolutely
no way you're leaving. No way."
I told him I'd see him in July,
but he said, "No, Ander."
"Call me. We can meet wherever you want,
but we won't meet here."
I didn't go.
My agent kept calling me,
saying I needed to catch a flight back.
I was in Rosario with my family.
"Not going, not going, not going."
And I didn't.
PSG made its offer,
and Ángel didn't hesitate.
Transferred to PSG
for 63 million.
Ángel Di María's arrival has sparked
a revolution in the French capital.
Paris was completely different.
From day one, I felt totally different.
2015 - PARIS, FRANCE
The lifestyle, the people
The city, it was incredible.
We got some churros
to go along with our maté.
-They're hot.
-Yeah, they're warm.
Ángel always arrives first, and I remember
he used to send me messages from Paris.
He was sure that we'd be happy there.
That it was very much like Madrid.
That I didn't need to worry.
I got to Paris
a little bit before Di María,
and I remember the jersey numbers.
I could wear number 32, or 25,
and some others. And 11.
And I couldn't pick number 11,
how could I pick that one?
Di María!
Some time later Di María arrived
and chose number 11,
so it seemed like God
had reserved that number for him.
He arrived at a time
when PSG was developing as a team,
on its way to becoming a big club
with some of the best players.
He was definitely key in helping
the club reach new heights.
PSG wins
the 2018 Coupe de la Ligue!
Everybody at the club,
respected him, they loved him.
Many players came and went
during my seven years at the club.
Important players. For example, Ibra
Cavani
Di María Goal!
And Neymar arrived
during my last year.
from Neymar.
A header from Di María. PSG scores!
Kylian
In the box.
Pass from Di María, Mbappé Yes!
For seven years,
every year I won something.
Plenty of titles.
I feel nothing but gratitude toward
France, and Paris, and PSG.
And the cherry on top,
because that's how much it meant to me,
was being teammates
with Messi on a club team.
It was really nice.
Even though we had been
playing together for 15 years,
playing for the same club means
spending way more time together.
I got the chance
to really get to know him
as a person.
To see him go through
different situations.
Joy, happiness, sadness. Everything.
And I got the chance
to know the real person he is.
And to meet and
to get to know his family,
his wife, his daughters.
I like it when Daddy's home.
Of course I had known him for a while,
in a way, out on the field,
but he proved to be a far better person
than I had imagined.
We'd always get together,
and do something at my house,
or at the house of some other player.
Argentinians and Brazilians.
Some Portuguese guys would come too.
It was rare for
a French person to show up.
We'd have a laugh, have a day off
with friends and family.
We'd always get together because
you've got your family at home, of course,
but your family also keeps getting bigger,
just as a result of
day-to-day life with the team, and
It's strange to say it, but
Uh, um
Sometimes you see the people on the team
more than your family, who are far away.
I'm going to tell you a secret,
but you can't tell anybody else.
At all.
This secret stays among us five here.
Okay?
Look. Do you see that?
Do you know what that is?
It's you!
Look at the small hand.
-Is that my sister?
-Yeah, look.
Pía was born in París.
Hello, sweetie.
Look. Daddy's holding you.
You're so small.
Here comes the bite.
Ángel and Pía fill
our home with love and joy.
And the next penalty kick
will be taken by
Pía Di María!
What a goal!
And she celebrates with a heart.
A club legend.
And the memory I'll always have
is the way he speaks French now.
It's incredible.
He's going to speak for the first time.
-No, no
-This'll be great.
When I arrived in Paris,
Ángel was the same person but he was
a completely different soccer player.
He was back to his former self again.
He felt appreciated, his family was happy.
-Go Dad!
-Daddy scores! Daddy scores!
-Yeah!
-Daddy scores!
I think his performance
with Paris Saint-Germain was
very good. Really good.
It was maybe even better than what
he was expecting.
Di María and he scores!
Every year, he's been
one of the top players. Without a doubt.
He had the most assists in history,
winning tournaments
and scoring lots of goals. He did it all.
PSG is French champion!
He's a real winner,
and he's got the trophies to prove it.
His name's gone down in PSG history
as the player with the most assists.
I think that's his real strength.
Centered to Di María,
to Mbappé, and he scores!
Di María is the kind of soccer player who
makes a difference when he's on the pitch.
He does more than just play the game.
In his time with PSG,
He took them to a whole new level.
Ángel Di María's PSG
just keeps winning.
I won
18 trophies in all with PSG.
There are almost no words
to describe what we achieved there.
And yet we always missed out
on the Champions League.
We were so close so many times,
and once we even made it to the final.
But we lost that game,
so I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
That's the way soccer is, and yeah.
I feel proud of those 18 trophies though,
even though we didn't achieve
that Champions League trophy.
We now have confirmation
of the news no one ever wanted to hear,
Diego Armando Maradona has passed away.
The news
is spreading worldwide,
Diego Armando Maradona is dead.
This is a day of mourning
for soccer. Maradona is dead.
I started receiving messages
saying that Diego had passed away,
and that hit me quite hard.
There were those nights when
he came to my room to talk with me.
Remembering my experiences
with him in 2010
Yeah, he always had my back.
That was one of
the saddest days of my life.
1960-2020 TIMELESS
THE WORLD MOURNS MARADONA'S PASSING
He has definitely secured his place
in the heart of Argentines.
FAREWELL, DIEGO I'M FOREVER GRATEFUL
YOU'LL ALWAYS LIVE IN OUR HEARTS
We were having
a great time in Paris.
We didn't want to leave.
But the president of the club
decided not to renew his contract.
And I was angry
because it wasn't Ángel's fault, but
Well, sometimes marketing can matter more
than quality to certain soccer teams.
Saying goodbye
As I remember, it was
It was a sad day.
Knowing that he wanted to stay with PSG,
and that the club
didn't wanna renew his contract,
that was sad for everyone around him.
Soccer is really crazy,
because one day the club
is depending on you,
and the next day they get rid of you
like you're nothing.
Seven years.
Not bad.
It's quite a while.
Yeah. I hope people
pay tribute to him the way he deserves.
Everything he's done here was great.
How will you remember him?
So many ways,
he's passed me the ball many times.
Fantastic pass
from Di Mariá to Mbappé! Now Mbappé
Mbappé fakes Yes! PSG scores!
He's leaving everything behind.
I was lucky enough to see him play before,
and playing with him has been an honor.
Thanks. Thank you for this year together.
His last game, he looked sad,
but we talked, and I told him
he should be enjoying this night,
rejoicing in the warmth of the fans.
That it was going
to be an important night.
And that's what it was.
This is Di María's
last match with PSG.
He left on excellent terms.
The way the fans said goodbye to him,
it's not something
that happens all that often.
I think that was
the cherry on top, right?
I'm glad that I was there
when the fans said goodbye,
showing him love and appreciation
for the commitment he gives
to the clubs he bonds with.
He's helped this club
to win 18 trophies in seven years,
and the fans will never forget that.
No one had ever stopped a game
for the rest of the team to celebrate
with a player before.
The fact that it happened to me
shows the respect and love
that my teammates felt toward me,
and that they appreciated my commitment
and qualities as a teammate.
It was tough for them to say goodbye.
What he did left an indelible mark at PSG.
The fans of the club
showed me their love.
The ultras of the club
showed me their love.
That's what they call themselves.
So far, I'm the only PSG player
to get a farewell like that,
and I think the reason they did it
was because I remained consistent
throughout those seven years.
By then I had already
heard about this from Bob,
Bob's a guy who works for the club,
that the fans wanted to
celebrate after the game with me.
I thought he meant
we'd celebrate on the field,
but that wasn't it.
Once the on-field celebration
with my family was over,
Bob approached me.
He said that the ultras wanted to honor
me outside. Outside the stadium.
And I started going outside,
but he said, "No,
we're not going out to the entrance."
He said they wanted me to go out
to the same spot where I had stood
after our game against Borussia Dortmund.
There's a picture of me doing this
with my shirt off,
looking down at the fans.
They wanted me to go out
and stand in the same spot.
Enjoying that moment
with the fans was really special.
You could say they're some
of the hardest fans to win over,
and I guess I managed to do so because
because I was
the only player they bid farewell to.
They lit fireworks in my honor.
They also sprayed some graffiti on a wall,
and they told me to sign it.
I'm nothing but grateful for
all the love they showed me.
I had done a lot,
and I had accomplished a lot of my goals.
But the national team was
still the most important thing.
We have some news
from the AFA. Jorge Sampaoli
Jorge Sampaoli is the new
coach of the Argentina national team.
We were very, very excited,
and we wanted to get
good results at the World Cup,
which was right around the corner.
We're here in Russia!
2018 FIFA WORLD CUP - RUSSIA
We barely even qualified.
Honestly,
things were not looking good for us.
After its
abysmal performance against Iceland,
Argentina looks complacent. Unforgivable.
I got benched after our next game.
He didn't say why.
I didn't get called to warm up.
CROATIA 3 - ARGENTINA 0
ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF
When things are off to a bad start,
especially considering the short
duration of the World Cup,
it's hard to turn things around.
Argentina lacks leadership.
Sampaoli and the players are failing
to meet the demands of this World Cup.
We were aware that as a national team,
we hadn't won the World Cup in 24, 25
Twenty-something years,
and it was weighing heavily on us.
And the critics
certainly made their voices heard.
They stomped us.
I think we qualified for the round of 16
after beating Nigeria,
and we were really almost
out of the tournament by then.
IT'S NOT OVER YE
We eventually faced an unstoppable France
that had a lot of young players,
and they had made a lot of changes.
And that's the way
we played our last game.
Amidst rumors of strife
in the staff-player relationship,
Argentina will now
face France in a decisive game.
Here comes Di María
And he scores!
Di María scores! Goal!
That's how big Argentina's dream is!
Argentina!
Whenever you score a goal,
you think about the insults,
about about the people
who've made your life difficult.
We had plenty of opportunities,
but Kylian proved to be
unstoppable that day.
An impressive victory
for Les Bleus! The dream is over.
How long do we have to wait
before Messi and company win something?
The game wasn't ideal,
but we should've been able
to take it to a draw.
We had one more opportunity
toward the end of the game,
but France just took it to us.
No, it was horrible.
They lack the spirit. That's all.
We need major changes. Unfortunately,
the boys are They're a bit old.
After their poor performance
under Sampaoli, what's the future?
Argentina hasn't won
a major championship since 1993.
We need to ask if Argentina
is still a soccer heavyweight.
I can tell you this, every single one
of us gave everything we had to win.
It sometimes feels like you hit a wall,
like the one he talks about,
and you feel like things
aren't going to work out.
It's extremely difficult because
you're up against 11 players,
also battling yourself, and dealing with
an off-field player with a microphone.
They said we're losers
and should stop playing,
but as long as
you're trying you're not a loser.
It's unfortunate but
that generation made you think that
there was only one thing that mattered.
I think after going through it all,
and facing defeat in something
as big as the World Cup or Copa América,
you find yourself reflecting
on a lot of things.
Lionel Scaloni, a former
staff member during the 2018 World Cup,
is now the coach
of the Argentina national team.
I know that we have the players,
that we have the talent,
and that they give it all for the team.
To take the reins of the team
at that time was a little crazy.
WHO'S SCALONI?
WE'RE NOT WINNING A THING
He hasn't even led
a fourth-tier team yet,
and he's now leading the national team?
You must be shitting me.
After the humiliating performance
at the Russia World Cup,
they have the nerve to
bring in a guy with no experience?
This is the guy
who's gonna lead Argentina
to a World Cup win?
You can't say that someone
who's been a soccer player for years,
that they lack experience.
The players actually know a lot.
Especially when it comes
to dealing with criticism.
I want to make it clear
that the national team
should be the players' top priority.
No club is above the Argentine jersey.
They need to understand that,
and for those who don't, well,
they won't get called up
as long as we're in charge.
The national team
is undergoing major changes.
Scaloni is not calling up Ángel Di María,
and it's almost a given that
he won't be playing in this Copa América.
I wasn't chosen on the second call-up.
He cried when that happened.
I started crying. Uh
I couldn't believe it. I was
doing everything right at the club.
It was very painful.
And I cried a lot
listening to my son
begging to be called up
for the Argentina national team.
"Speak up.
You need to say something about it."
If they don't call, and you just
stay silent then it looks like
you don't give a shit about the team.
She told me I needed to speak up,
and make some kind of statement.
That if I didn't and I just kept quiet,
that I wasn't ever going to make it.
Di María shoots!
And he scores!
It's true we lost three finals,
and so people want changes.
And even some of my own friends
have told me I should stay in Paris,
and drink coffee by the Eiffel Tower.
Uh, but I said I'd rather
wear the national jersey,
and get jeered by 45 million Argentines.
He always kept doing what we taught him.
I told him to keep on fighting,
and to keep on pressing forward.
Even if there are walls
that get in the way,
one needs to find a way forward.
I felt that I owed myself that much.
I wanted to do it.
And I needed to do it, for myself.
Yeah. That's why I persevered.
Di María shoots!
And he scores!
Di María! What a goal!
Di María! He scores!
We're looking at some newspaper clippings
from the time when
Ángel and I were still dating.
His sister Vanesa collected these.
I went with him to Europe, where
the first club he played for was Benfica.
Here's his transfer
to Real Madrid.
And here's the girl that gave
Ángel her telephone number.
You can just see her face,
back behind him!
These things are all behind us now,
but it's fun to have
these memories of them.
Other than the World Cup news,
there's more to know about soccer.
Real Madrid's first acquisition
for next season is now in Spain.
We're talking about Ángel Di María.
The international
player arrived
at the Barajas Airport at 6:10 a.m.,
and will be introduced
at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium
this Friday at 1:00 p.m.
-Are you happy to be in Madrid?
-Yeah, I'm very happy.
We got off the plane,
and we were walking toward the elevator,
and this girl came up
and said, "Here, take my number."
And she handed me a piece
of paper with her number.
I wanted to die. I couldn't believe
that was happening on my first day there.
We'd been together for about a year.
Not long at all. It was all new,
and this was Real Madrid.
She gave me her number,
and I just took it
WIFE
I took the paper from him.
She gave him her number
right in front of me!
She tore up the piece
of paper immediately.
But the whole thing did get us
off to kind of a bad start.
I told him
I was going back to Rosario.
I wasn't going to put up
with this kind of life.
I'm not a jealous person,
but that was really too much.
She did that right in front of me!
It just didn't make sense.
And I was supposed to tolerate
ten years of things like that?
No, no, no. Not for me. Not even a little.
I knew she was already upset.
But then after we got to our room,
she started crying, so I proposed to her.
I got on my knees and I asked her.
"Sheesh,
what am I going to do with this dude?"
He's saying all these things.
"I'll die if you leave me.
You have to stay!"
"I'd die if I couldn't be with you."
"Let's get married. Marry me."
And I said, "No,
I don't want to get married yet! Wait!"
I didn't want to get married yet!
I was just, like, "Slow down."
It was too much too fast.
But, you know, I stayed. I stayed.
This was 2010,
and the next year we got married.
We got a call from them, and they said
they were going to get married in Rosario.
That was something different for us
because we had never been
to a wedding there.
They were super happy.
Jorgelina got to
share that moment with her dad.
That was a big deal for her.
She was the one for me.
That's what I felt at the time.
And thank God, I I chose right.
And the reception party was awesome.
Nobody knows this story
Well, maybe a few people do.
It had a happy ending, though.
ÁNGEL DI MARÍA:
BREAKING DOWN THE WALL
The truth is, getting to know
José Mourinho, that was great.
He was in his prime.
He was definitely one of
the best managers in the world.
To have him be my coach was,
uh, incredible.
This is Ángel Di María's
debut with Real Madrid.
I had no doubts technically.
I had no doubts physically,
because his intensity was
his speed was something without doubt.
What I was analyzing the most
before making the decision
was the personality.
And that kid had no fear.
And Di María finds the net!
Ángel was always, uh,
a very discreet guy.
Very humble, very shy.
And as players we took him under our wing.
I think that all players who arrive at
soccer teams as large as Real Madrid
need some time to adapt to the change,
but Di María only needed
about two or three months.
Everyone in Real Madrid
and at the Santiago Bernabéu
just loved the way he played soccer.
Real Madrid at that time
was not a winning team.
REAL MADRID,
ANOTHER LET DOWN
THE CLUB HAS LOST ITS STATUS
It was a team with years of
of no progression in in Europe,
not winning domestic titles.
We needed really
what I used to call that, um
"no fear mentality."
And I felt that he could.
Xabi Alonso.
What a pass that was!
Such a young guy,
he arrived in Real Madrid,
and, um, immediately he became
the famous three.
In the end there were four.
Cristiano Ronaldo
is now in the box. He could score!
Ángel on the right,
Cristiano on the left,
Gonzalo and Karim alternating in
in the middle.
And they did it for years.
Di María's coming
from the right, looking to cross
Ronaldo scores a goal!
We won
the Spanish Cup that year.
And Real Madrid
hadn't won it in a long time.
Real Madrid
has won the Spanish Cup
for the first time in 18 years.
My second year at Real Madrid
was really important for me
because we won LaLiga.
Barcelona had been winning it
every year up until then.
The truth is, those three years
with the club were amazing.
Mourinho has always had an excellent
relationship with his players.
And as a coach, he helped me a lot,
but he also helped Di María.
He was key
in Di María's development as a player.
From the technical point of view,
I changed nothing.
Um I think it was born with him.
He was developing by himself, playing
probably in the street with his friends.
But football at a high level
is not the same as football in the street.
You have to be a player with a brain,
that understands the game,
that understands the timings,
that understands the strategies.
Football is not a science.
And what I used to say,
that he was a chaotic player.
And, for me,
to become a top player in a top team,
you cannot be a chaotic player.
So, when you're playing for a big team,
we need always to find a balance.
And I think with me he found that
that balance.
Benzema makes a deep pass.
Di María reaches the ball
and makes it into the box!
Di María scores!
We got married in July of 2011.
Part of the wedding involved filming
inside, uh, one of those photo booths.
I want more grandchildren,
I want more as soon as possible.
That happened in July,
and then in December,
he had a heart attack.
My father was dead.
Di María scores!
The Argentine player has had a difficult
week due to a tragedy in his family.
GERMÁN, YOU'LL BE FOREVER MISSED
On that day, our lives changed forever
because that was the same time
that what we wanted
was to welcome Mía into our lives.
Di María
coming in from the right!
He's at the edge of the box.
Looking for a second one.
Goal! Di María scores from the box
and then goes wild!
The pregnancy was smooth sailing
for us at the beginning. It was perfect.
I was due
to deliver on July 4th,
which was coincidentally
his sister Vanesa's birthday.
When we went in to do the ultrasound,
we couldn't see her.
And her face was blocked.
She was turning herself around.
I felt strange. Something wasn't right.
The technician left,
and came back with two doctors.
And they said I needed to be admitted,
um, because I had low fluid levels.
What they found was that there was
a rupture in the placenta.
She had been gradually losing fluids
without realizing it.
I was in my 28th week,
too early for the baby to be born.
But I told Ángel, "I feel like
they need to get her out."
"She'll die if she stays."
"She will die if she stays in my womb.
Take her out."
He told me to wait,
but I said, "She'll die."
The C-section
was scheduled for the 22nd.
If things went all right,
she'd need to stay in an incubator for
two months, give or take.
And she was born.
Mourinho knew
what was going on.
He told me to stay during labor,
but to catch a flight
for the next day's game.
People were talking shit,
all sorts of stuff, but they didn't know.
They didn't know that I went
and left my wife there,
alone in NICU,
and I still had to go and play.
My heart was in two places.
In the game and there.
But that's just how soccer is,
and it's my job, and I'll always
respect it for that reason.
Di María from the right,
he squeezes through!
He shoots from close range!
Goal! Di María!
I still had to travel
with the team, still had to stay focused.
I guess you could say
my life was the same.
Except Except for the fact
I had a daughter in NICU.
We used to visit her every night,
always wishing her sweet dreams
because we knew we knew
she might not be there the next day.
It was No two days were the same.
We stayed in Madrid for a month,
so we could visit
little Mía every morning.
I remember it well.
We would go in to see her and
she was inside that incubator,
full of cables and tubes everywhere.
She was so small
She was no longer than half an arm.
She was that small.
Yeah Yeah
Hi.
Mía was no bigger than a doll.
And you could literally dress
her in doll's clothing then.
Because she was only around
one or one and a half pounds.
But we stayed by their side,
just the way they've always
been by our side,
whenever the going got rough.
Hello, sweetie.
To give birth,
then go home without the baby?
I don't know.
I used to tell Ángel that it felt
like they had stolen her from us.
We used to hold each other
when we left the hospital.
We didn't talk. We were just crying.
We held onto each other and we just cried.
It's impossible to describe.
There are no words for
for
for what our minds and our bodies
were going through at the time.
I think becoming a father is
one of the greatest experiences ever.
No doubt.
But to always know that she
that she might not be there the next day?
There are no words.
By far, I think that was
the toughest moment of my life.
Let's see that smile.
Welcome home!
Then we returned home.
And, yes, I became a mom.
I had spent two months without my baby.
Honey, come here. Come here for a second.
We got home and asked ourselves,
"Now what do we do?"
We were new parents,
what are you supposed to do?
What do you do with this package?
Paint the bird. I'll paint the bunny.
-What's that?
-I don't know.
Pía, that's a marker!
How did I stain my shirt?
The troubles made us
the family we are today, I think.
It helped us build this beautiful family.
To me, that's what matters the most.
-Tell us about the trip to Madrid.
-Whoa, that was a tough one, man.
Just give me a second.
All right, so it's noon on a Sunday,
and I was eating with the family.
And all of a sudden, the phone rings.
It's Ángel.
Ángel never calls, man, you know?
It's all texts. Crazy, ya know?
I go outside, talk to him, he says,
"Hey, man, you good?
Everything okay? Whatcha doing?"
"I'm here at home. We just ate."
He says, "You got
any vacation time saved up?"
-I tell him, "Yeah, sure."
-Of course you did!
A whole month if you want, man!
I'm in for whatever!
I took a flight the next day
and got to Madrid.
And eventually, I get to immigration.
I show 'em my passport, my documents,
and said I was a friend of Ángel Di María.
And they asked me the result
of the Real Madrid-Barcelona game.
Because those two had played
a game earlier that day.
"I don't know. I've been traveling."
-I couldn't check my phone on the flight.
-You could've checked your phone!
The fact I didn't know
made them suspicious of me.
Yeah, he traveled to Madrid
with no luggage,
wearing glasses,
black sunglasses, of course.
You know what they said?
He's a trafficker.
A dangerous man.
They said, "Are you carrying cash?"
Now I'm sweating. And I said no.
I said,
"I got 150 pesos on me, that's it."
Pesos!
"Oh, and that's all you need
for a trip to Spain, huh?"
And I started to hear some
murmuring or something,
and I see Ángel in the distance.
He comes rolling up all casual,
he's got two police officers behind him.
So we get there,
and he's just sitting there,
and he's got his glasses
on top of his head.
I said, "You're chillin' right now?"
"They'll deport you.
You're acting like it's nothing."
He comes right up to me, and he just says,
"Come here," and it's passport, boom!
Off we go! Just like it was nothing!
And I'm looking at the guards like,
"I told you I was his friend!
I told you, but you didn't believe me".
That was my first experience in Spain.
It was wild, man.
Ancelotti is
now Real Madrid's new manager,
replacing José Mourinho.
Despite three excellent seasons,
Mourinho wasn't able to win the coveted
Champions League tournament.
They bought Bale
the same year Ancelotti joined the club.
Florentino's eyes
are on the market.
He intends to
replenish Real Madrid's ranks.
I knew I was on my way out.
We had Bale, Cristiano, Benzema
Uh what was I supposed to do?
I couldn't. It was impossible.
Di María will come off,
and this will be Gareth Bale's debut.
Even at the start,
Ángel wasn't playing every game
because I saw him
as essentially an attacker,
a winger and I also had Bale
and Cristiano in those positions.
But he never
As far as I know, he was never upset
about not playing in every game.
Real Madrid
will make a substitution.
Gareth Bale for Di María.
He's slowly earning his place in the team.
Things weren't going so well
during one home game,
and that's when the "I made
myself comfortable" situation happened.
The clip shows clearly what happened.
Di María looks
at the stands and thinks,
"I'm gonna tell everybody I really don't
like the way I'm being treated here".
Right as he's substituted.
When you get substituted in a game,
you may, uh
Uh, you may not be feeling the happiest.
Everyone thought I grabbed my crotch.
But it wasn't like that.
I was just making myself
comfortable on my way off.
Do I have to be honest, really?
What's done is done.
People mess up all the time,
I messed up plenty of times,
so I just didn't want him to
to go through that,
so I told him he should apologize.
Obviously, he apologized and said,
"I was making myself comfortable."
I apologize,
I didn't mean to insult anybody.
Nobody believed he was being honest.
He was disrespectful toward the fans,
the club and the Santiago Bernabéu.
I'd appreciate it if the Di María topic
could be wrapped up soon
because we have a lot of games to play.
And we need him.
We need Ángel Di María
to perform in every game.
Here's the stadium.
Brings back memories, huh?
Yeah.
Every kid watching the Champions League
with his friends dreams of it.
You dream of playing there someday,
playing at that level,
and experiencing the emotions
and the adrenaline of it.
Lisbon will be
Spanish for a day,
as thousands of Madrid
and Atlético de Madrid fans
have made the trip here
to the Portuguese capital.
Welcome to
the Champions League final,
where Real Madrid will have
its most important game in 12 years
facing off against Atlético de Madrid.
It really turned out to be
an unforgettable day for us
because it was
our first Champions League, you know?
Godín with the header!
Goal! Atlético scores!
Atlético de Madrid
could almost taste victory,
while Real Madrid wasted
every opportunity they had.
It's almost over,
but a corner kick for Real Madrid!
Modrić, Ramos!
Real Madrid scores the equalizer!
Goal!
Di María was the key for getting us that
coveted tenth Champions League trophy.
Di María skipping
past two, three players.
He's there! He shoots at the goalkeeper!
Bale! Goal!
Gareth Bale scores!
I remember the second play,
the one that led
directly to the second goal.
It was amazing. It was key.
That led us to win the trophy.
We were really happy when we won
the Champions League trophy together.
That tenth tournament win
had eluded Real Madrid for so long,
and it was amazing to do that,
to know that we finally made that happen.
It's a big deal to win
the Champions League, and
I remember that
it felt like a dream come true.
It was unique, it felt like
now everything was complete,
and we really enjoyed it.
It took 12 years, but the tenth
Champions League trophy is here,
and thousands of fans
are celebrating at plaza de Cibeles.
Yeah, he was the MVP, he stole it from me.
And the award for best player
in the final, the MVP,
goes to the Argentine Di María.
It's something that you dream of
from the time you're little.
It's something that you really want.
So I feel really happy to have this.
I was going through an exceptional time.
I was playing for
the best club in the world,
and the 2014 World Cup was coming,
so I was just, you know, going all in.
I was in my prime.
2014 FIFA WORLD CUP - BRAZIL
Argentine fans have begun
to swarm the legendary Copacabana Beach.
The 2014 World Cup
was unforgettable in every way.
Messi collects the pass.
He shoots! And goal!
Messi scores for Argentina!
We had a great team.
Messi with the kick!
Using his left leg,
he shot to the far post.
He scored during a free kick.
He did everything.
And there were other even better results.
Argentina-Iran, one-zero!
What a goal at the end of the game!
We kept on winning,
and we didn't lose a single game.
THE ARGENTINE MIRACLE
Argentina has
made it into the round of 16!
Rio is getting closer,
and while many Argentines
may be questioning if they should come,
it's clear that some of them
have already made up their minds.
We were all sure that, um
no matter who we faced,
we'd be able to hold our own.
That we were good enough
to put up a fight against anyone,
and that we'd make it far if we did that.
And we did.
We may have to go to
penalties, but now Messi has the ball!
He passes it to Di María.
Di María with the one-touch,
and he scores!
The way that goal happened,
and the fact that it was
right at the end of regulation,
it was just perfect timing.
It was a dream to score at a World Cup.
And on top of that,
it happened during
an important game of the round of 16.
It really was It was amazing.
Incredible!
Let's go, Argentina!
You're the best, Ángel! You're the best!
And your friends
were all there too, right?
Ángel asked
when we were dropping by and, uh
Of course we wanted to!
So we said yes, and then he said
he had tickets for us for the games.
And he had checked and there was
a flight from Buenos Aires to Rio,
and they had enough seats for all of us.
The moment we got that message
Tell me how it feels ♪
To have your daddy in your house ♪
Everything's ready here
for Argentina and Belgium to face off,
with a spot in the semifinals on the line.
Kompany is marking Messi.
Now Di María with the fake
near the box and he shoots!
Di María seems to be
experiencing pain in his right leg.
He's a nervous person, so his legs
His legs have to do all the work.
That's what I think.
No doctor has told me that or anything.
I say it's because of his nervousness.
He's so nervous,
and his legs are so tight and so tense,
he gets injured
whenever he starts running.
Again, Ángel?
Another injury? This can't be happening.
Of course I heard the talk,
and it was hard for me to cope with.
Every time I got injured,
I felt like I was letting
my teammates down.
That I was letting the team down,
and that's what bothered me the most.
I honestly felt worse about that
than I did for myself.
It felt horrible.
The guy just couldn't handle the pressure,
whether it was the pressure
of being on the national team,
the fans, the criticism, the injuries
I think you're the only one that
thinks that we aren't playing well.
I think we're doing things just right.
We're focusing on what matters,
winning games,
and we need victories
in order to win the World Cup.
-I wasn't watching the sports channels.
-I did all the time.
Are you telling me that you never heard
anybody talking about how Ángel was shit?
That he couldn't handle the pressure,
-he was always injured, things like that?
-Of course.
They were blaming him for everything.
You need to fight back
or ignore what they say,
or you'll be arguing with everybody.
Argentina has reached
the World Cup final again!
It may have taken 24 years,
but the dream is still there!
The World Cup final is
starting to shape up like a celebration.
Thousands of Argentines want to see
Messi and Di María walk out of the game,
holding the World Cup trophy
in their hands.
-He tested it.
-Sure.
He's fine in training,
but feels pain during the games.
Now wait just a moment,
it wasn't like that.
We know this,
Coach met face-to-face with him,
and the kid probably said
he wanted to play.
I remember that we trained
the day before the final
at Vasco da Gama Stadium.
And Ángel was there
and he started training,
and he gave it his best,
he really wanted to play.
I don't know the circumstances
or what was involved,
but it was decided
that he wouldn't be playing.
The doctor brought me a letter
when I woke up in the morning,
and surprisingly it was from Real Madrid.
The team had sent it saying they didn't
want me to play for Argentina in the final
because I wasn't 100% cleared.
He visited Sabella that morning,
and they, uh
Uh, they had a conversation.
And I guess you could say
that Sabella was not feeling convinced.
When Argentina reached the final,
Di María was said to be injured,
and the club sent a letter
to the national team
stating that they felt
he shouldn't be playing.
-Do you remember any of that?
-No.
So, yeah, I tore the letter up.
DI MARÍA IS OU
I remember that he was in my room,
and Mascherano dropped by
to find out what had happened,
and we ended hugging,
and crying, because
we knew how important this was to Ángel.
Here he was, he was so close,
yet he was getting sidelined.
We were so close, the fans were invested.
We had created this new connection
between the team and and the fans.
Today,
we will have a champion!
Will it be Argentina?
It was hard for him
Because here we were,
about to play the World Cup final.
And you never know
if there'll be a second time.
It's very hard just to get there once,
let alone twice.
Götze with the cross
And Germany scores.
With only eight minutes left now
before the end of the game,
this puts Argentina in a difficult spot.
It puts Messi in a difficult spot.
It was It was really tough.
Germany has won
its fourth World Cup.
Just like they did in 2006 and 2010,
the German team has put an end
to Argentina's World Cup ambitions.
We were this close to
winning the whole thing that year.
And the way the dream ended,
especially considering the high
expectations we'd created for Argentina
with the way we'd reached the final
that devastated me.
Serious incidents have
been reported in Córdoba, in La Plata,
and in the capital, Buenos Aires.
Man, I can't believe this.
What's wrong with us?
Tear gas everywhere.
Vandalism across the country.
That's who we are.
We always want to win,
and second place is it's
It's just not enough for us, it's
It's all about being champions.
I'll say it again.
Di María's situation is
the thing that killed us.
We lacked an explosive player
capable of finding the spots,
and then receiving passes from Messi,
and who's capable of placing those passes.
It's a shame, it is.
When he went out, we couldn't replace him.
Nobody could fill his spot!
While we felt
Argentina's defeat as viewers,
it was harder for him to be there,
knowing he couldn't play.
It was really hard for him.
Argentina wasn't meant to win at Brazil.
That's it. It just wasn't meant to happen.
Such is fate.
If he had played, would things
have turned out differently?
After losing
the World Cup final,
Ángel Di María must
now face another challenge.
Di María's days
at Real Madrid are numbered.
Manchester United could
make a move at any moment.
Everybody was high on him right then.
Understandably, given his excellent
performance the previous season, for us.
Neither Ancelotti nor I
really knew what was going on,
but he'd been told that I wanted to leave.
I told him that wasn't the case.
Real Madrid made the best possible offer,
and he didn't take it.
So apparently he wants to leave.
DOES HE WANT TO EARN THE SAME?
People said I wanted
to earn as much as Cristiano.
I don't see how anyone could think that
since Cristiano
had earned the Ballon d'Or.
I'd have to score 80 goals a year.
But that's what the press said.
And people ate it up.
The only one
they talked shit about was me.
No player earns that amount of money
except one, Cristiano Ronaldo.
I never had the chance to speak
one-on-one with Florentino Pérez.
I think that was a missed opportunity,
and that things might have been different
if we'd had that conversation.
Di María's exit signals
the departure
of the last hero of the Lisbon final,
where the club won its tenth
Champions League cup.
There's affection.
Plenty of it, especially every time
I've seen him in person.
Personally, I hold him close in my heart.
We were sad, you know? Because
he is an outstanding player of course,
but this was a close friend,
leaving for another country.
And Ángel Di María has said goodbye
to his Real Madrid teammates.
He's been acquired by Manchester United,
who are said to have already begun
negotiating his transfer with Real Madrid.
And while the transfer has
the potential to earn Real Madrid
around eighty million euros,
the club will have to let go of the MVP
of the last Champions League final.
Ángel Di María has become
the most expensive player
in the history of the Premier League.
2014 - MANCHESTER - ENGLAND
Yes, I'm very pleased that we can, uh
have such a class player in our squad.
I hope
he shall, uh, give us, uh, good results.
Uh
That's a tough one!
He got off to
a really good start in Manchester.
Van Gaal was very welcoming.
It really means a lot to me.
To wear the same jersey that has
been worn before by such legends.
I knew the importance of
Man U player number seven.
I knew who had worn that jersey before me.
It's a big jersey.
If it was me I'd've turned it down.
Di María
comes on to the pitch.
He had a great start.
He was crucial
during the first three or four games.
I was scoring goals,
making assists every game, left and right.
It was all incredible.
Rooney passes to Di María,
who chips the goalkeeper!
What a fantastic goal!
Daddy scores! He scores!
Congratulations, you were
the player of the game in your debut!
Thank you. Thank you very much.
He says "thank you."
Listen up!
I now present to you
Come on!
Herrera, the worm!
Hey, he's a good dancer!
It looked at first
like he was bound to become
another legend at Manchester United.
But things just kind of soured.
Van Gaal was the type of coach
who was very critical
when analyzing his players' actions.
And I found it surprising
that he considered it
unacceptable for Ángel to make
three or four mistakes per game.
Something strange is happening
between Van Gaal and Di María.
We were winning, I was making assists
and scoring, but he didn't mention that.
He only ever wanted
to talk about the mistakes.
Identifying and learning from
your mistakes is crucial, of course,
but given my position as a forward,
I'm bound to make mistakes
because I'm always trying.
My job is to always go for
an assist or take a shot on goal.
It reached a point
where things just got out of hand.
Compared to everyone else on the team,
it seemed like the coach
was being way stricter with him,
and I think most of the players
even thought it was excessive at times.
Eventually, I think all the criticism
ended up undermining Ángel's confidence.
I had sold more jerseys than anyone else
upon my arrival to the Premier League.
And I was the club's
most expensive acquisition,
so I was finding myself
under a lot of pressure.
Really, that year was shit.
The relationship between
Van Gaal and Di María is broken.
Manchester is a city
that gets very little sunlight.
It gets dark very early.
The sun sets around 2:30, 3:00.
Lots of rain.
Coming from Madrid,
which resembles Argentina the most,
Manchester's culture felt very different.
I was struggling to adapt.
One
Two
-And
-Three!
Yeah!
Then in February, around my birthday,
we were coming home after a game,
and we found some people
trying to break into our home.
DI MARÍA'S BRUSH WITH ROBBERY IN ENGLAND
We were returning home with Mía,
who was still a little girl,
and her babysitter at the time, Majo.
As we entered the garden,
I noticed a beam of light.
It looked like a flashlight.
Suddenly, three huge guys
dressed all in black appeared
at the window in front of us.
They were about two meters away.
And just then one of them started trying
to break the window with a club,
just hitting it again and again.
The babysitter rushed Mía upstairs,
and she pressed the alarm button
when she was on her way up.
I didn't know she'd done that at the time.
There was a knife there on the table,
and I was holding
a chair up against the glass.
And I hear Ángel saying,
"One moment! One moment!"
That's all the English he knew!
I was just trying to buy some time
for my family to get upstairs, you know?
Once I got upstairs,
I threw Ángel the wallet
but it only had pesos in it!
I didn't know that!
But later when we were safe, he said,
"What the hell, did you want me to die?
You gave me pesos, not pounds!"
Then there were
four officers and a helicopter.
We don't know if the men escaped,
if the alarm scared them away or what.
But there was snow on the ground,
and the men's footprints
were this huge, like a size 58.
Like out of a movie!
Once we were out of that awful situation,
then I still had
to stay at a hotel for a month
while I was trying
to find us another apartment.
That was
psychologically kind of devastating.
I already wasn't feeling good
because of the whole thing with the coach,
and so this was kind of the last straw.
That day I knew I wanted to leave.
I knew I didn't want to be there.
For his birthday,
which is on February 14th,
I decided I would try to arrange
a surprise visit from
all his friends from Rosario.
When we traveled to Manchester,
it was quite an experience.
It was incredible.
Ángel was away, playing a game.
So I locked myself with Mía
and all his friends in my room,
and then once he opened the door
There was laughing, singing, hugging
He was crying like a baby, all that.
So good.
Unbelievable!
How's this possible?
I'm still speechless, man!
It was quite a feat
to bring everybody there,
and somehow she did it.
She made it happen, and to be honest,
if we put the bad experiences aside,
that was one of my best birthdays.
That was good,
but wait, it got even better,
because later on I caught them all playing
soccer in the hallway at 2:00 a.m.!
They were lucky we'd just gone through
the break-in and Mía wasn't in the house.
If they'd done that
in my house with my girl there,
they'd never hear the end of it!
I remember that I went outside
because we heard some noises,
and, you know, you can imagine
our state of mind at the time,
after what we had been through,
we didn't even feel safe at the hotel.
We were super sensitive to things.
There was a security guard by our door.
We were kicking the ball around,
and Ángel came out wearing his underwear.
He was still kinda shook up,
and he was thinking
someone had come to rob him,
and was trying to break down the door.
So I come out in my underwear,
and the guard was there,
and I ask him, "Good?"
And he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
The next morning,
once we woke up and I asked the guys
what had been going on out there,
they told me they had been playing soccer
with the security guard,
and I was just like,
"Goddammit. It was you guys all along."
Back and forth
from goalkeeper to security guard.
He wanted a piece of the action!
Yeah!
They were all having fun,
and that's okay, it was great.
I remember we were
brushing our teeth after breakfast
when we had one of our last conversations,
and he said
he wasn't coming back next year.
I didn't believe him, and I told him look,
the club just paid what?
Seventy or eighty million euros
for your transfer from Real.
"There is absolutely
no way you're leaving. No way."
I told him I'd see him in July,
but he said, "No, Ander."
"Call me. We can meet wherever you want,
but we won't meet here."
I didn't go.
My agent kept calling me,
saying I needed to catch a flight back.
I was in Rosario with my family.
"Not going, not going, not going."
And I didn't.
PSG made its offer,
and Ángel didn't hesitate.
Transferred to PSG
for 63 million.
Ángel Di María's arrival has sparked
a revolution in the French capital.
Paris was completely different.
From day one, I felt totally different.
2015 - PARIS, FRANCE
The lifestyle, the people
The city, it was incredible.
We got some churros
to go along with our maté.
-They're hot.
-Yeah, they're warm.
Ángel always arrives first, and I remember
he used to send me messages from Paris.
He was sure that we'd be happy there.
That it was very much like Madrid.
That I didn't need to worry.
I got to Paris
a little bit before Di María,
and I remember the jersey numbers.
I could wear number 32, or 25,
and some others. And 11.
And I couldn't pick number 11,
how could I pick that one?
Di María!
Some time later Di María arrived
and chose number 11,
so it seemed like God
had reserved that number for him.
He arrived at a time
when PSG was developing as a team,
on its way to becoming a big club
with some of the best players.
He was definitely key in helping
the club reach new heights.
PSG wins
the 2018 Coupe de la Ligue!
Everybody at the club,
respected him, they loved him.
Many players came and went
during my seven years at the club.
Important players. For example, Ibra
Cavani
Di María Goal!
And Neymar arrived
during my last year.
from Neymar.
A header from Di María. PSG scores!
Kylian
In the box.
Pass from Di María, Mbappé Yes!
For seven years,
every year I won something.
Plenty of titles.
I feel nothing but gratitude toward
France, and Paris, and PSG.
And the cherry on top,
because that's how much it meant to me,
was being teammates
with Messi on a club team.
It was really nice.
Even though we had been
playing together for 15 years,
playing for the same club means
spending way more time together.
I got the chance
to really get to know him
as a person.
To see him go through
different situations.
Joy, happiness, sadness. Everything.
And I got the chance
to know the real person he is.
And to meet and
to get to know his family,
his wife, his daughters.
I like it when Daddy's home.
Of course I had known him for a while,
in a way, out on the field,
but he proved to be a far better person
than I had imagined.
We'd always get together,
and do something at my house,
or at the house of some other player.
Argentinians and Brazilians.
Some Portuguese guys would come too.
It was rare for
a French person to show up.
We'd have a laugh, have a day off
with friends and family.
We'd always get together because
you've got your family at home, of course,
but your family also keeps getting bigger,
just as a result of
day-to-day life with the team, and
It's strange to say it, but
Uh, um
Sometimes you see the people on the team
more than your family, who are far away.
I'm going to tell you a secret,
but you can't tell anybody else.
At all.
This secret stays among us five here.
Okay?
Look. Do you see that?
Do you know what that is?
It's you!
Look at the small hand.
-Is that my sister?
-Yeah, look.
Pía was born in París.
Hello, sweetie.
Look. Daddy's holding you.
You're so small.
Here comes the bite.
Ángel and Pía fill
our home with love and joy.
And the next penalty kick
will be taken by
Pía Di María!
What a goal!
And she celebrates with a heart.
A club legend.
And the memory I'll always have
is the way he speaks French now.
It's incredible.
He's going to speak for the first time.
-No, no
-This'll be great.
When I arrived in Paris,
Ángel was the same person but he was
a completely different soccer player.
He was back to his former self again.
He felt appreciated, his family was happy.
-Go Dad!
-Daddy scores! Daddy scores!
-Yeah!
-Daddy scores!
I think his performance
with Paris Saint-Germain was
very good. Really good.
It was maybe even better than what
he was expecting.
Di María and he scores!
Every year, he's been
one of the top players. Without a doubt.
He had the most assists in history,
winning tournaments
and scoring lots of goals. He did it all.
PSG is French champion!
He's a real winner,
and he's got the trophies to prove it.
His name's gone down in PSG history
as the player with the most assists.
I think that's his real strength.
Centered to Di María,
to Mbappé, and he scores!
Di María is the kind of soccer player who
makes a difference when he's on the pitch.
He does more than just play the game.
In his time with PSG,
He took them to a whole new level.
Ángel Di María's PSG
just keeps winning.
I won
18 trophies in all with PSG.
There are almost no words
to describe what we achieved there.
And yet we always missed out
on the Champions League.
We were so close so many times,
and once we even made it to the final.
But we lost that game,
so I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
That's the way soccer is, and yeah.
I feel proud of those 18 trophies though,
even though we didn't achieve
that Champions League trophy.
We now have confirmation
of the news no one ever wanted to hear,
Diego Armando Maradona has passed away.
The news
is spreading worldwide,
Diego Armando Maradona is dead.
This is a day of mourning
for soccer. Maradona is dead.
I started receiving messages
saying that Diego had passed away,
and that hit me quite hard.
There were those nights when
he came to my room to talk with me.
Remembering my experiences
with him in 2010
Yeah, he always had my back.
That was one of
the saddest days of my life.
1960-2020 TIMELESS
THE WORLD MOURNS MARADONA'S PASSING
He has definitely secured his place
in the heart of Argentines.
FAREWELL, DIEGO I'M FOREVER GRATEFUL
YOU'LL ALWAYS LIVE IN OUR HEARTS
We were having
a great time in Paris.
We didn't want to leave.
But the president of the club
decided not to renew his contract.
And I was angry
because it wasn't Ángel's fault, but
Well, sometimes marketing can matter more
than quality to certain soccer teams.
Saying goodbye
As I remember, it was
It was a sad day.
Knowing that he wanted to stay with PSG,
and that the club
didn't wanna renew his contract,
that was sad for everyone around him.
Soccer is really crazy,
because one day the club
is depending on you,
and the next day they get rid of you
like you're nothing.
Seven years.
Not bad.
It's quite a while.
Yeah. I hope people
pay tribute to him the way he deserves.
Everything he's done here was great.
How will you remember him?
So many ways,
he's passed me the ball many times.
Fantastic pass
from Di Mariá to Mbappé! Now Mbappé
Mbappé fakes Yes! PSG scores!
He's leaving everything behind.
I was lucky enough to see him play before,
and playing with him has been an honor.
Thanks. Thank you for this year together.
His last game, he looked sad,
but we talked, and I told him
he should be enjoying this night,
rejoicing in the warmth of the fans.
That it was going
to be an important night.
And that's what it was.
This is Di María's
last match with PSG.
He left on excellent terms.
The way the fans said goodbye to him,
it's not something
that happens all that often.
I think that was
the cherry on top, right?
I'm glad that I was there
when the fans said goodbye,
showing him love and appreciation
for the commitment he gives
to the clubs he bonds with.
He's helped this club
to win 18 trophies in seven years,
and the fans will never forget that.
No one had ever stopped a game
for the rest of the team to celebrate
with a player before.
The fact that it happened to me
shows the respect and love
that my teammates felt toward me,
and that they appreciated my commitment
and qualities as a teammate.
It was tough for them to say goodbye.
What he did left an indelible mark at PSG.
The fans of the club
showed me their love.
The ultras of the club
showed me their love.
That's what they call themselves.
So far, I'm the only PSG player
to get a farewell like that,
and I think the reason they did it
was because I remained consistent
throughout those seven years.
By then I had already
heard about this from Bob,
Bob's a guy who works for the club,
that the fans wanted to
celebrate after the game with me.
I thought he meant
we'd celebrate on the field,
but that wasn't it.
Once the on-field celebration
with my family was over,
Bob approached me.
He said that the ultras wanted to honor
me outside. Outside the stadium.
And I started going outside,
but he said, "No,
we're not going out to the entrance."
He said they wanted me to go out
to the same spot where I had stood
after our game against Borussia Dortmund.
There's a picture of me doing this
with my shirt off,
looking down at the fans.
They wanted me to go out
and stand in the same spot.
Enjoying that moment
with the fans was really special.
You could say they're some
of the hardest fans to win over,
and I guess I managed to do so because
because I was
the only player they bid farewell to.
They lit fireworks in my honor.
They also sprayed some graffiti on a wall,
and they told me to sign it.
I'm nothing but grateful for
all the love they showed me.
I had done a lot,
and I had accomplished a lot of my goals.
But the national team was
still the most important thing.
We have some news
from the AFA. Jorge Sampaoli
Jorge Sampaoli is the new
coach of the Argentina national team.
We were very, very excited,
and we wanted to get
good results at the World Cup,
which was right around the corner.
We're here in Russia!
2018 FIFA WORLD CUP - RUSSIA
We barely even qualified.
Honestly,
things were not looking good for us.
After its
abysmal performance against Iceland,
Argentina looks complacent. Unforgivable.
I got benched after our next game.
He didn't say why.
I didn't get called to warm up.
CROATIA 3 - ARGENTINA 0
ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF
When things are off to a bad start,
especially considering the short
duration of the World Cup,
it's hard to turn things around.
Argentina lacks leadership.
Sampaoli and the players are failing
to meet the demands of this World Cup.
We were aware that as a national team,
we hadn't won the World Cup in 24, 25
Twenty-something years,
and it was weighing heavily on us.
And the critics
certainly made their voices heard.
They stomped us.
I think we qualified for the round of 16
after beating Nigeria,
and we were really almost
out of the tournament by then.
IT'S NOT OVER YE
We eventually faced an unstoppable France
that had a lot of young players,
and they had made a lot of changes.
And that's the way
we played our last game.
Amidst rumors of strife
in the staff-player relationship,
Argentina will now
face France in a decisive game.
Here comes Di María
And he scores!
Di María scores! Goal!
That's how big Argentina's dream is!
Argentina!
Whenever you score a goal,
you think about the insults,
about about the people
who've made your life difficult.
We had plenty of opportunities,
but Kylian proved to be
unstoppable that day.
An impressive victory
for Les Bleus! The dream is over.
How long do we have to wait
before Messi and company win something?
The game wasn't ideal,
but we should've been able
to take it to a draw.
We had one more opportunity
toward the end of the game,
but France just took it to us.
No, it was horrible.
They lack the spirit. That's all.
We need major changes. Unfortunately,
the boys are They're a bit old.
After their poor performance
under Sampaoli, what's the future?
Argentina hasn't won
a major championship since 1993.
We need to ask if Argentina
is still a soccer heavyweight.
I can tell you this, every single one
of us gave everything we had to win.
It sometimes feels like you hit a wall,
like the one he talks about,
and you feel like things
aren't going to work out.
It's extremely difficult because
you're up against 11 players,
also battling yourself, and dealing with
an off-field player with a microphone.
They said we're losers
and should stop playing,
but as long as
you're trying you're not a loser.
It's unfortunate but
that generation made you think that
there was only one thing that mattered.
I think after going through it all,
and facing defeat in something
as big as the World Cup or Copa América,
you find yourself reflecting
on a lot of things.
Lionel Scaloni, a former
staff member during the 2018 World Cup,
is now the coach
of the Argentina national team.
I know that we have the players,
that we have the talent,
and that they give it all for the team.
To take the reins of the team
at that time was a little crazy.
WHO'S SCALONI?
WE'RE NOT WINNING A THING
He hasn't even led
a fourth-tier team yet,
and he's now leading the national team?
You must be shitting me.
After the humiliating performance
at the Russia World Cup,
they have the nerve to
bring in a guy with no experience?
This is the guy
who's gonna lead Argentina
to a World Cup win?
You can't say that someone
who's been a soccer player for years,
that they lack experience.
The players actually know a lot.
Especially when it comes
to dealing with criticism.
I want to make it clear
that the national team
should be the players' top priority.
No club is above the Argentine jersey.
They need to understand that,
and for those who don't, well,
they won't get called up
as long as we're in charge.
The national team
is undergoing major changes.
Scaloni is not calling up Ángel Di María,
and it's almost a given that
he won't be playing in this Copa América.
I wasn't chosen on the second call-up.
He cried when that happened.
I started crying. Uh
I couldn't believe it. I was
doing everything right at the club.
It was very painful.
And I cried a lot
listening to my son
begging to be called up
for the Argentina national team.
"Speak up.
You need to say something about it."
If they don't call, and you just
stay silent then it looks like
you don't give a shit about the team.
She told me I needed to speak up,
and make some kind of statement.
That if I didn't and I just kept quiet,
that I wasn't ever going to make it.
Di María shoots!
And he scores!
It's true we lost three finals,
and so people want changes.
And even some of my own friends
have told me I should stay in Paris,
and drink coffee by the Eiffel Tower.
Uh, but I said I'd rather
wear the national jersey,
and get jeered by 45 million Argentines.
He always kept doing what we taught him.
I told him to keep on fighting,
and to keep on pressing forward.
Even if there are walls
that get in the way,
one needs to find a way forward.
I felt that I owed myself that much.
I wanted to do it.
And I needed to do it, for myself.
Yeah. That's why I persevered.
Di María shoots!
And he scores!
Di María! What a goal!
Di María! He scores!