Angel Di Maria returns to Benfica 13 years later, a world conqueror
The Argentinian will spend part of his twilight years at the club where he made his name
Angel Di Maria spent three seasons at SL Benfica between 2007 and 2010
Di Maria won a UEFA Champions League title at Real Madrid
Di Maria scored in Argentina’s Copa America and FIFA World Cup final triumphs
Akshat Mehrish The sight of a rangy winger with frightening pace and the gift of manipulating the ball to his will running at them filled opposition defenders, and those backing them from the stands, with terror; Angel Di Maria at SL Benfica was at his rawest, most devastating state. The Rosarino had arrived in Lisbon in 2007 for a small fee, which Benfica would quintuple while selling him off to Real Madrid three years later. In his wake, Di Maria would leave an indelible impact at Estadio da Luz and a highlight reel full of thought-defying goals. Thirteen years later, Angel Di Maria is back at Benfica, no longer a prospect with the world at his feet, but a European, South American, and world champion. The winger returns to the club where he made his name upon arriving from Argentina after a year at Juventus and signs a one-year deal until the end of the 2023-24 season. Donning the iconic red shirt of As Aguias with his favoured number 11 sprawled across his back, Di Maria addressed 2,5000 Benfiquistas from the Da Luz balcony upon his second unveiling.
“I am back home, because I feel Benfica as my home; it is something unique,” he said, capturing his decision to rejoin the Lisbon giants in a few lines. Born in Rosario, a city overshadowed by the bright lights of Buenos Aires but which stands as an equally significant contributor to Argentina’s footballing landscape, Angel Di Maria began playing football at the age of three. He hailed from a sporting background, with his father almost making it as a professional with one of Argentina’s greatest clubs, River Plate, only to see his career peter out due to a knee injury. At the age of seven, Di Maria joined the ranks at Rosario Central, one of the city’s two biggest clubs, the other being Newell’s Old Boys, at the cost of 25 footballs to his former team Torito. He spent a decade-and-a-half in Rosario Central’s academy and two years with the first team before leaving for Lisbon in 2007 as one of the country’s most promising prodigies of that generation.
At Benfica, Angel Di Maria enjoyed the defining spell of his career. Over 125 games across three years for the club, and another dozen for the national team, the winger established himself as an extraordinary talent, one with the knack for changing games at will. He helped Benfica win a league and two cups, contributed to Argentina’s triumphs at the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and even began picking up the goal-scoring tab as he grew into the game. The Rosarino scored 10 in 45 in his final season at Benfica before transitioning into a team of Galacticos at Real Madrid. For four years, Di Maria, more or less, seamlessly slotted into a superstar squad at Real Madrid, winning a league title and helping the club break its UEFA Champions League drought. It was one of the more successful periods of the Argentinian’s career at club level, but it didn’t yield the volume of domestic titles that he would collect later in his life at Paris Saint-Germain.
In Paris, where the winger had arrived after an ill-fated year-long stint with Manchester United, Di Maria won five league titles and several other domestic cups, adding silverware regularly to his burgeoning trophy cabinet. Angel Di Maria left PSG a club legend after seven years, during which he had made 295 appearances and scored 92 goals. Di Maria joined Juventus in the summer of 2022 for a year. But his year in Turin will be remembered for the time he spent away from the city, with the national team in Qatar, helping them win the FIFA World Cup. A year before Argentina’s World Cup triumph, Di Maria had ended his two-year-long international goal-drought by scoring in the 2021 Copa America final. His goal in the 1-0 win over Brazil, in turn, ended the Albiceleste’s barren run in the competition that was threatening to enter its second decade. The following summer, the winger would score another significant goal, making the scoreline 2-0 for his team in an eventual 3-0 triumph over Italy in a clash of continental champions at the iconic Wembley.
However, those two strikes pale to the one he converted in the 36th minute of the FIFA World Cup final in Lusail. Argentina would make hard work of it, but Di Maria’s goal in the 36th minute, at the time, had put the champions-elect well on their way to a third World Cup triumph. The attacker only lasted an hour in the final, his departure leaving a significant gap in the Argentinian attack that would allow France to snake their way back into the match. With the Albiceleste winning in the ensuing shootout, though, Di Maria celebrated gleefully with his teammates, shedding the burden of winning the elusive crown off his shoulders that had plagued each generation of the country’s football since Diego Maradona. Having conquered the world, Angel Di Maria returns to SL Benfica for what promises to be one final flourish of his illustrious career.