Di María dreams of the Libertadores with Rosario Central again, nearly 20 years later

There's a line Ángel Di María has been repeating for more than a year now, and it's finally starting to feel real. Back in January 2024, still in Portugal wearing Benfica's colors, he said something that sounded like a distant dream: "It would be a dream to win the Libertadores with Central." Eighteen months later, that line has stopped being an offhand wish and turned into a goal with a date on the calendar.

Di María already checked off the first chapter of his return: he came back to Rosario Central in 2025, the club where he took his first steps in the game, and got to celebrate a title with the canalla jersey on. But there's one item left on the list that occupies a special place in his mind. He's won the Copa América, lifted the World Cup in Qatar 2022, and claimed the Champions League with Real Madrid. His trophy case is full. Still, the Libertadores with Central is different: it would close a circle that started when he was an 18-year-old kid.

This isn't even the first time he's played the tournament in that shirt. Di María made his Libertadores debut with Central back in 2006. Nearly 20 years later, he's back in South America's top club competition as a world champion, with a different stature and a different résumé, but with that same old hope.

A Central squad dreaming big

Jorge Almirón's team took care of business in the group stage, finishing among the tournament's best with a solid defense and punching its ticket to the round of 16. The statement moment came in matchday five, when Central thrashed Universidad Central de Venezuela 4-0 at the Gigante de Arroyito. Di María was part of it, scoring a goal of his own, coming through once again when the team needed him most.

Now the challenge has a name: Corinthians, Central's opponent in the round of 16. The series kicks off on August 13 and wraps up on August 20 at the Neo Química Arena, the São Paulo stadium once known as Arena Corinthians. It's no small draw to open the knockout stage.

Di María isn't hiding his ambition. After the club clinched its spot, he was blunt about what's ahead:

I want to win, I want to win. Hopefully it happens for me this year.Ángel Di María

At 38, with a career that's taken him through Real Madrid, Manchester United, PSG, Juventus and Benfica, Di María has nothing left to prove individually. So what's left? Exactly that: keep winning, and do it in the jersey that made him. Lifting the Libertadores with Rosario Central would carry a different weight than any other title in his career, because it would complete the journey that began two decades ago in that very same tournament.

Central is already among the 16 best teams in the Americas. Corinthians is the next test, the first real one in a stage that leaves no room for mistakes. For Di María, the mission goes beyond the result of one series: it's the concrete chance to fulfill the dream he confessed to while still playing in Europe, a dream that today, for the first time, feels within reach.