Angel Di Maria believes he has just ended his best season at Real Madrid and expects to be in contention for the Ballon d’Or.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the current holder of the Golden Ball but AS quotes Di Maria as telling Argentinean publication Ole that he should be in the running.
“Sometimes I don’t understand why I’m not on the list when I’ve had a great season for a great club,” he said.
“Here are the players who won. I didn’t win and I wasn’t even among the nominees, the 10 or 50 best.
“But these things happen. You have to keep working.
“You work to continue to grow and improve and be among the best.
“There are many players who are doing well but I think I had a great season, my best at Real Madrid.
“We won the Champions League and I was the best player in the final. I also had a good year with the national team.
“I hope everything goes well now.”
Di Maria added that when it comes to the Argentina side, there’s no argument that Lionel Messi is the main man.
“He’s our captain and he carries the baton,” Di Maria said of the Barcelona forward.
“He has four Ballon d’Ors and he’s the boss. We follow him and go with him and I try to do my best for the team so everything goes as smoothly as possible.
“I don’t know what’s required to be the champions. Argentina are one of the candidates by name but there are a lot of strong teams in good form.
“I believe we have a very good team to fight for the title. The group is very well and we’ll try to do our best to get to the final so we can once and for all be world champions.
“It’s always a failure if we don’t win the World Cup. It will be a failure or a new story.
“There are seven tough games and sometimes you need a little luck like Spain did at the last World Cup.”
