During the summer of 2017, two years after signing for Paris Saint-Germain from Manchester United, Angel Di Maria was reportedly courted by FC Barcelona.
This was the summer right after Barcelona humiliated PSG in the UEFA Champions League by winning 6-1 at the Camp Nou to overturn a 4-0 deficit in the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. Losing Di Maria would have been salt in the wound.
The transfer ultimately didn’t go through and that’s a very good thing for PSG supporters as Di Maria has been one of the best players in the squad especially during the 2019-20 campaign.
In a new interview with L’Equipe, Di Maria was asked about Barcelona’s interest and whether or not he regrets not leaving Paris to play with compatriot Lionel Messi.
“I was very happy in Paris. But people at the club at the time told me some things, which turned out to be lies in the end. Barca tried to get me to come. The two clubs discussed but PSG did not want to sell me and that ended there. These lies annoyed me a lot but, in the end, not leaving was a good thing because I am very happy in Paris.”
The juiciest part of that quote is the fact that someone at PSG supposedly lied to Di Maria while negotiations were ongoing. At the time, Unai Emery was the manager and Antero Henrique was the sporting director having just arrived in early June of 2017.
Considering that Di Maria is happy now and those two men are no longer at the club, one can assume that it was either Emery or Henrique who lied to him.
Either way, it doesn’t matter now. Di Maria is a PSG player and according to his comments later in the L’Equipe interview, he wants to end his career in Europe at PSG.
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