Angel Di Maria reveals the best players he played with – but he shows no mercy to Cristiano Ronaldo. The creative icon is nearing the end of his career in Argentina, with plans to retire from international football after this summer’s Copa America.
Towards the end of his career, the Benfica midfielder was asked in an interview with MARCA to reflect on the biggest stars with whom he shared the field and tore opponents apart.In goal, Amy Martinez was selected ahead of Iker Casillas and David de Gea after the Aston Villa keeper’s heroics at the Qatar 2022 World Cup, which Argentina won.
Martinez is perhaps best remembered for his last-minute save to deny France’s late winner Randal Colo Mouani and send the game to a penalty shoot-out. Real Madrid team-mate Sergio Ramos and former Manchester City centre-back Nicolas Otamendi, known from Argentina and Benfica, were used as centre-backs.
Di Maria decided not to pick a right-back (limited to just 10) and had strong praise for some of the stars he played with. That list includes Antonio Valencia, Alvaro Arbeloa and Pablo Zabaleta, but he was pleased with Real Madrid’s “awesome” left-back Marcelo.
In midfield, he picked Anfield favorite Javier Mascherano alongside Rui Costa, who ended his career at Benfica, while Di Maria started. This leaves four slots for an unprecedented huge four-face. Lionel Messi, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Kylian Mbappe were part of a fearsome quartet that scored almost 2,200 goals between them.
Unfortunately, Di Maria gave Ronaldo the thumbs up despite being good team-mates with Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Karim Benzema and Danny Welbeck. ‘I had the opportunity to play with so many and have that privilege that sometimes if they don’t ask me a question like that I don’t start thinking about who I played with and the truth is that it is crazy if I have to put myself together.
I could easily put together two all-star teams,’ Di Maria said. He is not the first football legend to rate Ronaldo a notch below his peers. Ronaldo Nazario, known as the ‘original’ Ronaldo, was shocked last week when he failed to include the current Al Nasr star in his list of his top eight players of all time.
Di Maria didn’t bother to include the right-backs, so it’s hard to say whether he was basing his judgment on things like how the team matched up.
The 35-year-old moved to Benfica this summer and scored 11 goals and provided five assists for his first European club. Benfica are second in Portugal’s top flight, just one point behind leaders Sporting CP.
