Di Maria tells Garnacho to stop copying Cristiano

There are not many players who get to play alongside both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in their professional careers, never mind while still being teenagers.

Alejandro Garnacho is one of the lucky few. He broke into the Manchester United first team, playing up front alongside childhood idol Ronaldo and has been called up to the Argentina side alongside Lionel Messi.

It is priceless experience that will stay with the United teenager for the rest of his career, but Di Maria believes the Argentine international should look to embrace his links to Messi more than those to Ronaldo.

The Benfica ace is hugely impressed with what he has seen from

Garnacho so far but he admits he wouldn’t encourage him to celebrate like

Ronaldo due to his international links with his great rival. “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.

Di Maria added: “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.

“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 realize 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.”