Angel Di Maria tells Alejandro Garnacho to stop copying Cristiano Ronaldo trait and emulate Lionel Messi instead

Former Manchester United midfielder Angel Di Maria has called out Alejandro Garnacho for idolising Cristiano Ronaldo instead of Lionel Messi.

Di Maria is one of the lucky few players who have had the pleasure of sharing a dressing room with both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

It doesn't appear to be a mystery which side of the fence the Benfica man

sits, as the Argentine recently completely left out Ronaldo from his 'all-time teammate XI'.

Despite representing the Argentinian national team, it seems that Garnacho has the opposite opinion with the United winger's love for Ronaldo well documented.

The teenager celebrated his first United goal in the Europa League alongside Ronaldo by copying the 38-year-old's celebration.

Garnacho asking permission to copy Ronaldo's celebration- Getty

Garnacho also marked one of the greatest Premier League goals of all time in 'CR7 fashion', as he performed the iconic 'Siu' celebration at Goodison Park after his spectacular bicycle kick.

These celebrations are exactly what Di Maria has taken issue with, as he called for Garnacho to ditch his Ronaldo theatrics and be more like international teammate Lionel Messi.

“The only thing I wouldn’t do is celebrate Cristiano. I would score the goal and I would do like Messi does. I’ll stick with that," he told Argentine newspaper Ole.

Despite this criticism, Di Maria was very complimentary of the 19-year-old winger and tipped Garnacho for big things.

"He is a very fast player, he has incredible ability. He is going to gain it with experience and coming to the National Team, it is a place where you learn a lot and continue to improve. It helped me a lot to grow technically in every way, it is spectacular," Di Maria added.

“I think he will grow with experience as well. When I was young I wanted to make the play 30 times in the game. Over the years you realise that if you do it 10, but you do it better, it’s worth it.

“He has a lot of future, a very big future. It depends on him, on his head, to be able to handle it. I don’t have much to say, there’s a reason he’s playing for Manchester United," The World Cup winner concluded.

Topics: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Football, Alejandro Garnacho, Premier League, Angel Di Maria, Argentina

Tom Jenkins

Tom Jenkins is a Social Editor and Journalist for SPORTBible. Specialises in Football and F1 but has experience covering a variety of sports such as MMA, Boxing and Cricket. Suffers weekly as an Evertonian.

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