Patrick Rees
We can troll footballers as much as we want but in the midst of all festivity, we tend to forget that at the end of the day that footballers are humans as well and they have emotions too. Some seem to keep it private but when a certain boiling point is reached, a potential bust-up is always on the cards.
Something selfsame seems to be the case with former Manchester United winger Angel Di Maria, who decided to come out to reveal that he was so close to quitting international football when he saw the memes of trolling his nation Argentine for the way they qualified for the World Cup. Footballers tend to have a strong mental balance and it is completely understood given how much they have to deal with the media, internet and everything.
However, not everyone has that patience to keep going on. Di Maria, on his part, has played for some of the biggest clubs in Europe and has 92 national caps to his name. Yet, a certain risk is always involved and you can never overlook it. Speaking of risks, Argentina had one tiring World Cup qualifiers and were on the cusp of getting knocked out from the same.
The Los Gauchos, however, managed to book their tickets for the grand tournament but had to pay a certain price. Speaking to Tyc Sport (h/t The Sun), the Argentine said,
“The memes to the players of the national team hurt us a lot, and it makes you think a lot. If you think about leaving it (the national team), it’s because of that, because you see the family suffer.”
With the likes of Lionel Messi, Argentina are giants of the world game, but Jorge Sampaoli’s side left it until the last match to get to Russia – and their fans were not happy.
He added: “To me it helped me a lot psychologist, to talk, to unburden. Thanks to that I learned that behind a computer or cell phone is easy to laugh. My head is fine now. In the World Cup we are at the level of Germany and Spain in name but we have to prove it with our play.”
We as spectators want positive results from our side which is completely acceptable but the problem is that we somehow overlook the mental state of the other person involved. It is glad to see that Di Maria didn’t break down because of this and rather took the right steps to deal with it.
