Reviews

I got lucky and pulled this card in a 3 player upgrade pack (I actually pulled a duplicate a few days later in the 81+ upgrades and had to dump it into an SBC since both were untradable).

Looking at the stats on the card and the traits, right away I knew I had to try him and he wouldn't be just high rated SBC fodder. He's got pace, 5* Skills, and 90+ in the key offensive stats. The one negative on paper is his 2* weak foot, but I've heard good things and that it wasn't as bad as it looked. I used him mostly as a striker in a 4-2-3-1 (the squad linked above was what it looked like in game) with a Marksman Chem Style, but moved him to central CAM sometimes late in the match if I wanted to bring on an extra attacker.

I played him in some Rivals and Squad battles during the week to test him out (and complete some weekly objectives) and right away he was rippling the back of the net. He is super smooth on the ball and fluid with skill moves. I'm not normally huge on spamming skill moves and use possession and passing to create openings, but Di Maria is the sort of card that makes you want to skill in those 1v1 battles and he doesn't disappoint. He can chain together moves and dances on the ball, culminating in a few highlight real goals. I didn't notice the weak foot at first and he scored a handful on his weak right boot.

Then the weekend rolled around and I played him in Champs (I'm usually a Silver 1/Gold 3 player). His quickness and agility on the ball felt amped up a bit and his ability to pull out a ball and immediately have a step or two on a defender was crazy, but he also created space by stopping quick on the ball sending sprinting defenders flying past. However his weak foot was also amplified. All of a sudden if I approached the net from the left and he hit the ball with the right, even a sitter was going wide of the next almost every time. He's nothing short of clinical on the left (long finesse shots, low drivens, cutting across goal), but his right became just short of a peg leg (I think in champs games he scored 2 on the right in 26 matches). He was still the standout on my weekend league squad and scored with ease, but I found myself way more conscientious of trying to force the play to his left foot than I have ever had to be with other strikers.

Overall: He is fantastic card - and as the price normalizes once the Ligue 1 is out of packs he'll be a great value for a top tier CAM or striker. He'll do best as a right striker in a 2 striker formation, or an RCAM in a 4-2-3-1 so that he'll come across the goal and hit the ball with his left. The only real negative is the weak foot, but worth it for the rest of the package.

I bought this card to replace the ELMOTM Falcao that has served me faithfully for over 350 games. I was optimistic at first since I'd had a good experience with his 88 LW card but boy was I surprised at how truly awful this card was. For context I am a Gold 1/2 player and I play DR in Division 2 or low Div 1. I forced myself to suffer through 10 games of ST to review this card and then quickly sold him when his price had rebounded. In the 10 games he played at striker he scored 7 goals and got 4 assists which doesn't sound awful at first but the amount of easy chances this card failed to score amazed me. Obviously the biggest con is his 2* WF which makes him basically unplayable at striker and while he tries to avoid shooting on his WF when he does you can be assured it's either going to be extremely slow or be in row Z. What I will say is his free-kicks are insane and 5 of his 7 goals came from free-kicks ranging from 20-36yards. There are so many better cards at this stage of the game especially at striker so please save yourself the money and consider another card.