Juventus Need To Prioritise Keeping Di Maria For Another Season

After a horrendous start to the season, Juventus’ season is actually looking like it could end in silverware – somehow.

The Bianconeri are in the quarter final of the Europa League, where they face a difficult challenge against Sporting CP – with a potentially mouth-watering semi final with Manchester United awaiting. Moreover, they’re are also in the semi final of the Coppa Italia, where they’ll slug it out with perennial rivals Inter in what will surely be two games of attrition, and won’t be easy on the eye.

If Max Allegri’s side are looking much better in 2023 than they did in the back end of last year, one of the chief reasons is due to the form of Angel Di Maria. The Argentine arrived in Turin on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain last summer, but his impact in Serie A had been minimal in the opening months of the season.

Always a classy operator and grossly underrated in the pantheon of football greats over the last decade, Di Maria had the ability to light up Serie A, even at the age of 34. “Di Maria would be like [Diego] Maradona in Italy,” remarked Di Maria’s former PSG team mate, the legendary Gigi Buffon. “Today’s Serie A is poor technically and Angel has quality to spare.”

To a large extent, Buffon was right, yet in the opening months of the season there wasn’t much evidence of that. Di Maria barely featured due to a series of niggling injuries. He scored and provided an assist on his debut against Sassuolo, but Di Maria didn’t score or register another assist for the rest of the year. The next time he did so was against Napoli in the 5-1 humiliation at Naples in mid-January, when his well-taken goal gave Juve a glimmer of hope – for all of 13 minutes.

Suspended for three games for a straight red card received at Monza in mid-September and a muscle injury meant he only played seven Serie A games before the club game stopped for the World Cup. Of course, he played a starring role in Argentina’s triumph in Qatar, and since he’s returned, Di Maria has looked a different player, and in many ways a new signing for Juve.

Since that 5-1 defeat in Naples, Di Maria has scored twice and contributed three assists in Serie A, but it’s in the Europa League where he’s come alive: a hat-trick against Nantes in the round of 32 playoff was followed by another goal – the winner – in the first leg round of 16 tie against Freiburg in Turin.

Handed a prominent role by Max Allegri within the Juve system, Di Maria has been the sole creative focal point in Allegri’s 3-5-1-1, playing in behind either Dusan Vlahovic or Moise Kean. With Federico Chiesa slowly working his way back to full fitness and Paul Pogba perpetually injured, the onus has been on Di Maria to conjure moments of brilliance, to be the difference maker in what is an excruciatingly mundane, yet oddly resolute, Juve outfit.

Di Maria only signed a one-year deal at Juve, with the view being that he may want to return home in the summer of 2023. However, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, there is optimism that Di Maria could extend for a further year in Italy. Di Maria is open to the idea, appreciates the central role he has within Allegri’s team after being relegated somewhat in his last couple of seasons in Paris, and most importantly it’s reported that his family are settled in Turin.

Given the stupid levels of money Juve have frivolously thrown around in the last three or four years, extending Di Maria’s contract until the summer of 2024 would be one of the smartest things they’ve done in recent years. With a nucleus of new talent emerging in the shape of Nicolo Fagioli, Samuel Iling-Jnr, Fabio Miretti and Enzo Barrenechea, Di Maria could offer his guidance and experience to help mould and refine a group of talented youngsters, the leader of a new generation.

Should his current form continue until the end of the season, then an extension for Fideo (Di Maria’s nickname, meaning The Noodle) should be at the top of the club’s priority list this summer.