The Argentine scored in the Copa del Rey final win against Barcelona and was the best player on the pitch in Lisbon when Madrid won La Decima

A year before his Champions League final heroics, doctors gave Di Maria and his wife's baby a 30 per cent chance of survival after she was born

Angel Di Maria attributes his successes with Real Madrid to his daughter Mia's survival after being born three months premature

The versatile midfielder was one of Real Madrid's stars last season and was named man-of-the-match in the Champions League final win over Atletico

When Sir Alex Ferguson gave Angel Di Maria his man-of-the-match award at the end of last season’s Champions League final it was for 120 minutes of incredible football.

But for the Argentine winger the real ‘game of his life’ had been played out in the previous 14 months amid the turmoil of a career under threat at Real Madrid and a baby daughter born three months premature.

As emotional as the events of winning the club’s 10th European Cup in Lisbon were, nothing Di Maria achieves in football will rank alongside the story of his daughter Mia.

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Family values: Di Maria with his wife Jorgelina Cardoso and their daughter Mia, who was born prematurely

Winner: The Argentine had a sensational year for Real Madrid and helped them win the Champions League

A year before that extra-time run and assist for Gareth Bale to score the decisive goal in a 4-1 victory over Atletico Madrid, Di Maria’s wife Jorgelina Cardoso had suffered pregnancy complications and doctors had given the couple’s baby a 30 per cent chance of survival if the birth was not induced.

Mia was born three months premature on April 22, 2013, the night before Real Madrid faced Borussia Dortmund in a Champions League semi-final.

Di Maria missed the game to be with his wife and the couple agonised for the next two months as their daughter stayed in intensive care before finally being allowed to go home.

With Mia safe and sound Di Maria was able to turn his full attention back to playing football but Real Madrid had signed Bale in his place and he appeared to be facing up to a season on the bench.

Dedicating his goal: Di Maria looks up to his family after scoring Argentina's winner against Switzerland

Angel's No 1 fan: Baby Mia wears an Argentina top with 'Papa 7' on the back in tribute to her famous father

‘My daughter taught me that everything that appears to be really difficult can end up being easy if you put the effort in and wait for the rewards,’ he said. ‘She transmitted so much energy to me and it helped me to have the spectacular year that I had.’

Di Maria was the top goal provider in the Spanish league last season with 22 assists, he scored in the Copa del Rey triumph over Barcelona and outplayed everyone in Lisbon as Real lifted the Champions League trophy.

Former Real manager Jose Mourinho had requested his signing four years earlier, with his agent Jorge Mendes helping to bring the wiry winger to the Spanish capital after two years in Portugal with Benfica.

The transfer fee was big at £20million but the wages were low and the fact that they never increased as his value to the side grew remains the main reason why he is now a Manchester United player.

La Decima: Di Maria was named man-of-the-match in the Champions League final against Atletico Madrid

Showboat: Di Maria enjoys performing 'rabona' crosses, where he flicks one leg behind the other

Real boss Carlo Ancelotti said this week that ‘the club did everything it could to keep him’, but that is not the case. He also said after Real lost the Super Cup to Atletico without 26-year-old Di Maria: ‘We didn’t need him today.’

Ancelotti was told in the summer that James Rodriguez would be arriving and that Di Maria would be the sacrifice. The coach’s long career working for Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan means he is well-schooled in the art of accepting every command that drops down from on high, no matter how ill-advised. Real’s reluctance to put Di Maria on anything like pay parity with Bale and new signing Rodriguez owes much to image.

Madrid’s business model is built on footballer pin-ups. Di Maria does not fit the poster-boy brigade. Nicknamed El Fideo (the noodle) for that long streaky physique, he is more hall of mirrors than hall of fame but there is an admirable durability to both his character and his constitution.

Before he accepted the man-of-the-match award in Lisbon last May from former United manager Ferguson he had other important business to attend to. On the final whistle he went looking for his father Miguel and when they found each other pitchside it was a case of a dad hugging the son who had just lived his dream for him.

Unstoppable: Atletico Madrid right-back Juanfran tries to stop Di Maria during the Super Cup on August 19

Familiar foe: The 26-year-old is set to complete a move to Manchester United for £59.7million from Real Madrid

Angel’s father had made it to River Plate’s first team as a player but had his progress cut short by a knee injury that would not be career-ending today. He quit football and took a job delivering coal in Rosario, regularly taking Angel along to help him and occasionally — when his delivery route allowed — stopping off to see his son train at Rosario Central, the club that signed him when he was only seven.

Angel made it to those training sessions thanks to the commitment of his mother Diana, who used to take the boy on her bicycle. Each trip was a 50-minute test of endurance with Angel on the back of the bike and his three-year-old sister on the handlebars. Stamina runs in the family.

Daughter Mia celebrated her first birthday last April and the Di Marias invited all the parents and babies who had 12 months earlier shared the agony of the incubator unit of Madrid’s Monteprincipe Hospital. All the babies born prematurely with Mia had, like her, survived.

A part of Di Maria will always remain in Madrid because of the medical staff that gave Mia the round-the-clock care she needed to pull through.

It will also not be easy to swap the No 22 for the No 7 at Old Trafford, no matter what the historic significance of the latter — 22 is, after all, the number he picked out when he arrived at Madrid in 2010 and ended up being the date of birth of his little girl.