Before the World Cup final 2014, Angel di Maria plagued the worries about his injury. And then a letter came from his club.

• Angel di Maria about Letter from Real Madrid: “I did not even open him”
• Angel di Maria: “But it never happened”

It should have been the greatest day in his life. World Cup final, Argentina against Germany. But instead of anticipation Angel di Maria was full of skepticism in the morning of that 13th of July 2014.

“It was exactly 11 o’clock. I sat in the coach’s office and should get a syringe in my leg right away,” Remembered Di Maria 2018 in a post for the players’ Tribune. At the 1-0 victory in the quarterfinals against Belgium, the Mittelfeldmann had pulled himself a muscle bundle rupture, the habitual against the Netherlands (4: 2 penetration shooting) he had already missed.

But in the final Di Maria wanted to try it, hoped, with painkillers he would be able to play. “I still remember how I said exactly these words about the coaches: If I’m broken with it, then let me break me. I do not care. I just want to play.”

Then Daniel Martinez, the team doctor came in to the door. But instead of the syringe he had a letter in his hand. He was of Real Madrid, the then club of today’s PSG star. “Martinez said, ‘You write that your condition does not allow you to play. You want to force us to let you play today’.”

Angel di Maria about Letter from Real Madrid: “I did not even open him”

Di Maria was immediately clear what is behind it. To create space for the commitment of James Rodriguez, who had shown in the World Cup in Brazil for Colombia’s performances, Real di Maria wanted to sell after four years. “So they did not want their sales object to be damaged,” writes Argentine. “It was so easy. That’s the business that many people often do not see at football.”

But Di Maria did not want to do that with him. If he should not play in the evening, that would only be because the coach and he himself keep it better to set up a perfectly Fitten player in his place. “So I said Daniel, he should give me the letter. I did not even open him, I just tore him in pieces and said, ‘Summit’ away. The one who decides here, I’m.”

Whether he actually could lead against Germany, became the race against time. “I wanted to play that day, even if my career ended,” says di Maria.

But he asked the team thought about everything, said again with the then National Coach Alejandro Sabella: “I said, ‘If I am, then I am it, if it’s another, then he just wants to win the World Cup, If you count on me, I’ll play until I collapse. ‘ And then I started to cry. I could not hold it back. This moment had overwhelmed me. “

Angel di Maria: “But it never happened”

Finally, Sabella announced that Enzo Perez and not Di Maria would play in the team meeting. “I agreed with this decision,” says di Maria. Nevertheless, he let himself be a painkiller before kick-off and again in the half-time break. “So that I would be ready if I should come from the bank. But it never happened.”

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Di Maria sat on the bench for 120 minutes, Argentina lost the final of Rio de Janeiro with 0: 1 after extension against the DFB eleven. After all, he only had to go back to Real, changed a good month after the World Cup final for 75 million euros to Manchester United. He was not happy there – but a year later with his move to Paris.