A surprise: Angel Di Maria is not going to Saudi Arabia, he is going to Portugal to Benfica Lisbon. He was only in Italy for one year, but he played good football there, so I thought he would be taken by a club with a lot of money at the end of his career. He is 35 years old and at that age maybe they are done with football, or you keep playing for fun or for big money. But he has decided to return, after 16 years he goes back to Benfica, to the club where he was in younger years.
Di Maria is my favorite player, he knows where to land and takes advantage of the skills he still has
to donate to his favorite club. At 35 years old and with Di Maria's level of health, I'm sure Benfica can put his services to good use. Initially I thought Saudi Arabia's offer would tempt him and other rumors such as his visit to Messi in Miami led to a lot of speculation that Di Maria would join. But in the end, Benfica became an unexpected choice after so long wandering.
It was obviously a big emotional decision for him. Any player that decides to go back to his old club instead of going to Saudi where he could get a huge amount of money is certainly a decision that I think we all have to respect.
But at the same time if he did decide to go to Saudi a huge amount of money which could have been great for him. I think he is going to Saudi and making sure that the retirement money was going to be huge would have been there. But as I said this was certainly a very emotional decision for him. I do believe that it would have been a better decision to go to Saudi, but I do respect his decision and I understand why he decided to go to Benfica.