5 times top players were made to look terrible

#2. Di Maria makes Puyol do the split

Puyol ain't done warming up

The ability to dance around defenders is a gift in itself. But making defenders dance to your groove is of wizard fabric. That is the level at which Di Maria used to operate on during his stint with Real Madrid.

In the Copa Del Rey semi-final second leg, 2013, Angel Di Maria reduced Carles Puyol to a puppet who got his strings clipped.

Sami Khedira speculatively smashed the ball away from defence and Di Maria embarked on quite an entertaining and almost perfect run.

Di Maria sprinted down the left flank and Puyol was hightailing the Argentinian. The winger then decided to cut in and Puyol controlled his pace and poised himself to make a tackle. Before Puyol could transfer the weight to his toes again, Di Maria had already turned away and was running clear. The Spanish legend, flat-footed and having nowhere to go crumbled to his knees and performed an unsightly version of the split inside the area.

Now, that wasn't well received, first of all, for the absolute lack of grace on display and secondly due to the fact that Ronaldo scored a goal after Di Maria's shot rebounded off the post.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Amit Mishra