Angel Di Maria on Jorge Sampaoli when he coached the Argentina national team

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Angel Di Maria along with Lionel Messi will both play for PSG against Marseille, a team coached by former Argentina national team manager Jorge Sampaoli.

Di Maria and Messi were both part of the Argentina national team at the 2018 World Cup which was managed by Sampaoli. A lot of controversy surrounded Sampaoli and his team selection in addition to the reported in disagreements he had with the players and the coaching staff.

On Sunday, it will be PSG playing against Marseille with two Argentine coaches at the helm. Mauricio Pochettino for PSG and Jorge Sampaoli for Marseille. Speaking in an interview back in September with TyC Sports, Di Maria spoke about things were with Sampaoli coaching Argentina. Here’s what he had to say:

“The truth is that it started very well and ended badly. Every time he would come to Paris, he would tell me he had Leo, myself and the others. He treated me as if I was one of the best players but after one match, he would leave me on the bench during the World Cup, without an explanation.

“The next match against Croatia, I didn’t even warm up. The third match against Nigeria, I played because it was obvious he was going to put the big players because the catastrophe was coming.

“He is a very odd person. He started off very well with everyone and ended very badly with everyone. A lot of things happened between himself and Beccacece, there was no one to guide you. It was a shame because it was Masche’s last World Cup and it ended up in the worst way possible.

“We had a team and players for much more (than what they achieved) because when we played against France, Kylian (Mbappe) later told me in Paris that they were really screwed when they had to play against us. You could tell because when we went 2-1 up, they were screwed in the back. But well after that we had bad luck, a goal from another world and after that Kylian’s speed killed us. We could have passed.

“I think it would have been fair if we would have been eliminated in the first round because we were not good.”

29 Comments

  1. West Ham vs Hotspur today

    The Spurs losing 1-0 but Cuti Romero was very good, the MOM of the Spurs. The goal was from the corner from Antonio after a poor marking from Harry Kane. Cuti played like the only one who wants to win.

    Lo Celso played only the last 7 minutes.

    The comments of Spurs fans:

    Recruitment has been shocking over the last 3 years. Romero looks the only decent purchase.. Regi, Royal, Lo Celso, Ndombele, Hojbjerg, Rodon, Bergwijn and Gollini have weakened us not improved us.

    Despite their side’s abysmal showing, and disappointing result, however, the Lilywhites faithful, to their credit, were also sure to pinpoint the standout efforts of one member of their starting XI on Sunday – Cristian Romero:

    Nah man Romero been amazing today honestly, shame Kane and Reggy let him down

    — (@SpudsOfficiaI) October 24, 2021

    Romero only one Who put in a respective performance

    — Mikkel Hoberg (@MikkelHoeberg) October 24, 2021

    Romero has been Spurs’ only good player today #THFC #WestHam #Nuno #Cuti #Romero. What a shocking game.

    — Spurs Ed (@Official_edheat) October 24, 2021

    We’ve made some trash big signings like Lo Celso and Sessegnon… Romero ain’t one of them

    — Matt (@PrimeKarlMarx) October 24, 2021

    Romero is deadass the only player putting a smile on my face

    — R. (@ButDeBentaleb) October 24, 2021

    Romero WANTS the win bro, only guy playing

    — Yo, TK! (@khoase_) October 24, 2021

    Make everyone walk home except Skipp and Romero.

    — #FueraJoeLewis (@_fletch____) October 24, 2021

    Awful from Spurs, but Romero was different class that second half.

    Struggling to give a fuck regardless of our results, regardless of the opposition.

    Nuno AUUUUUTTTT.

    — 1882KnowsBall! (@18Spurs82_) October 24, 2021

    Romero the only Spurs player interested in the game today #Tottenham #Spurs

    — george taylor (@Georgektaylor96) October 24, 2021

    Snap synopsis. Defence fine bar Reg being careless. Midfield isn’t creative bar ndombele who probed, lucas, son and Kane completely off it. Second half didn’t look like scoring and our tempo isn’t good enough. Romero going to be a star.

    — SWSPURS (@swspurs)

    • Still makes no sense how they criticize Lo Celso. For one do they realize that he has been played out of position 75% of the time and secondly how has he possible “made them weaker”? Their managers are the problem

      • How locelso makes them weaker when he doesn’t get any minutes atall. Yes he is not a world class midfielder but still can be decent with regular minutes

    • Gio simeone manages to start season very strong. Even last season he did very well at start. But then lost steam & was mostly a sub in latter half. Hope he can sustain this early momentum

  2. Not defending what happened to the NT under Sam in anyway shape or form but as I said MANY times on this forum, ‘he was the ONLY coach that responded when his country came calling’ and that in my eyes demands respect, he left his club where he was making more money and a whole lot less pressure and came running. Can’t be said about the other two coaches who only ran their mouths from a distance and did NOTHING to help.

    • Right on. And one of the coaches running their mouth hasn’t even won a league title and the team he now manages (PSG) won the league from the 2012 -2019,2020 seasons until he showed up and they were 2nd place 2020,2021 seasons. Now he has Messi.

      People respect him more than Sampaoli who left his comfort zone to manage a dysfunctional team not talking to the press. It really was chaotic when he took over.

      • No they lose in 2017 too. And Poch was not worse than Tuchel in the start of the season, to be honest he was better. Tuchel lost the dressing room completely.

      • Poch lost the season purely because Tuchel started the season really badly, hence why he [Tuchel] was replaced.
        As for Sampaoli, well credit to him for answering the NT’s call but that doesn’t excuse his abysmal performances, I mean it’s not like Argentina was lacking players that could play his style but he was totally trash, truly a deer stuck in headlights.

        • Sampaoli wasn’t given proper time. If you say Poch lost the season purely due to Tuchel, then you have to say Sampaoli is excused for WC due to Bauza.

          But you can’t deny that Tuchel in the same season he was replaced, won the Champions League with a team no one thought had a chance. Now they are contenders in the league and UEFA.

  3. I am a bit surprised to hear that kind of comments from Di Maria, if he was benched, he should have asked himself how was his performance during the 1st game. I admire the player but I found him talking too badly on his ex club or ex coaches. Sampaoli’s real problem with the national team is that he was too ambitious with his 3331 and there were no player to implement that.

  4. A number of young players are making their mark in the Primera this season. Central’s 18 year old Infantino with a peach of a goal. 2 goals in 2 games.
    Then there are Milton Gimenez (7 goals for Central Cardoba) and Tissera (7 goals for Platense), who are making their impact after coming from the lower divisions.

  5. Tata did what he had to do taking this team to two finals while not getting paid – Had he stayed, we could have won, but the players didn’t respect him as a manager (great players tend to have egos that even us fans ignore…). The AFA was a mess though and what truly hurt 2018 WC chances was Bauza overstaying his welcome. Sampaoli was not given the chance Scaloni was given and he should have stayed in Sevilla as Barcelona would have been his next destination. Look what he did with Chile when he was given time – even without a striker (property #9). After Sampaoli left, Chile cannot even qualify for WC.

    Sampaoli’s weakness though is counter-attack from technical teams. I’m not sure he would have corrected this as he seems stubborn like Bielsa.

  6. The problem with Argentine managers is , when they manage other teams they will put together plans and strategies according to the strength of the team but as soon as they are at he helm of Argentina team they start to play fifa in real life. Most of the coaches Argentina hire have very less experience in handling so many star players in their career and that is one of the reason they screw up bigtime. Sampaoli stepped in when our main players were aging, he didn’t have time build a team like Scaloni. So what did he do? He picked players based on the perfomance of one game. If you performed you are in and if you don’t you are out, examples Meza , Paredes & Pezzella. Subsequently, played high-line pressing game with old and mediocre players.

    Sampaoli’s predecessors also needed to be blamed for the catastrophe. Had Tata and Bauza tried to graduqally integrate new players into the team we wouldn’t have to go through the 2018 disaster. Both the qualifying campaign and the WC was nothing but embarrassment. We desperately needed to replace back-pass master Biglia, one tournament wonder Rojo ,washed up Masch and over weight Higuain. Biglia and Masch killed our midfield. Masch at best could have been a substitute in 2018. For Argentina to make any radical change we always have to go through a disaster. 2002 disaster led to Pekermen being incharge, 2010 disaster led to Sabella coaching the team and now Scaloni.

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