Madrid prevented Di Maria from playing in the 2014 final

Di Maria has opened up in an article in the Player's Tribune, about his omission from Argentina's World Cup final squad.

On the morning of the final, he was preparing to take part in the game despite having torn his calf muscle in his nation's quarter-final clash. He was about to receive an injection from the team's medical staff to numb the pain when a letter came through from his then club.

The winger recalls being told: "Well, they're saying you're not in any condition to play. So they are forcing us to not let you play today"

For him, there was only one possible explanation for why this was the case:

"Everybody had heard the rumours that Real wanted to sign James Rodríguez after the World Cup, and I knew that they were going to sell me to make room for him.

"So they didn’t want their asset to be damaged"

The player went to his national team coach, Alejandro Sabella, and begged him to let him play, literally bursting in to tears in the process. But the coach decided against it, and Di Maria was left to watch his team lose 1-0 in extra-time from the bench, powerless to do anything to stop Germany from emerging as the victors.

In this year's tournament, the PSG man was left out of his side's second group match against Croatia, which ended in a disastrous 3-0 loss.

He is expected to be re-introduced in to the side for the tie against Nigeria, which is a must-win game for Argentina to fulfil their hopes of getting to the knockout stages of the competition.