It was a moment that genuinely enraged Paris Saint-Germain, and had entirely the opposite effect than intended for Manchester United.

The Argentine lay there in pain getting treatment, United fans mocking him, in what was just a humiliating moment.

Therein lay the danger, because Di Maria was the primary problem for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side for the rest of the night. His quality from set-pieces brought the first goal. His brilliance on the break produced the second.

That ability, really, had been released.

Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Show all 23 1 /23 Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Manchester United vs PSG player ratings Our nothern football correspondent Mark Critchley runs the rule over the two teams. Getty Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG David de Gea - 8 out of 10 United’s stand-out performer, as usual. Denied Mbappé superbly with a second-half reaction save, having already frustrated PSG’s frontman in the first half. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Ashley Young - 5 Up for the challenge, as the robust challenge on Di Maria showed, but found dangerously out of his depth. EPA Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Eric Bailly - 5 Preferred over Jones due to his speed but that extra yard of pace counted for little once Mbappe put on the afterburners. REUTERS Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Victor Lindelof - 5 A performance to forget for the much-improved Swede, who had few answers to Mbappé, Di Maria and Draxler’s movement. REUTERS Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Luke Shaw - 6 Unable to support the attack as much as he would have liked though largely kept an ageing Dani Alves in check. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Nemanja Matic - 5 Began well, intercepting play at key moments, but lost Kimpembe on the costly corner. He and United never recovered. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Paul Pogba - 6 Marked closely by Marquinhos but managed to occasionally break loose. Late red card prevents him from a return to Paris. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Ander Herrera - 5 Another who began well defensively but, like many of team-mates, tired and tailed off as PSG began to take control. AP Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Jesse Lingard - 7 United’s brightest outfield player in the first half until his evening was cut short by an apparent hamstring injury. EPA Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Marcus Rashford - 5 Failed to carry his domestic form into European competition and, short of a few moments of good link-up play, led the line ineffectively. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Anthony Martial - 5 A subdued presence on the left flank until, like Lingard, his evening was cut short by injury. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Gianluigi Buffon - 6 The greatest goalkeeper of his generation spent the evening relatively undisturbed. REUTERS Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Thilo Kehrer - 7 Picked out by some as a potential weak link but kept watch over both Martial and Sanchez, limiting their impact. REUTERS Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Thiago Silva - 8 A reminder of his old, dominant self. Shut down the few United attacks which managed to make their way past PSG’s equally impressive midfield. Action Images via Reuters Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Presnel Kimpembe - 7 Walked a tightrope after an early booking for fouling Rashford and had several hairy moments but more than made up for them with the goal. Action Images via Reuters Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Dani Alves - 7 Not his old, marauding self but that is understandable at 35 years of age. PA Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Marquinhos - 8 Sat on Pogba when United were in possession and dominated the midfield contest, strangling Solskjaer’s attempts to prise open the visitors. REUTERS Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Marco Verratti - 7 Started despite concerns over an ankle injury and performed well in the circumstances. EPA Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Juan Bernat - 6 Clattering tackle on Young earned a yellow. Appeared vulnerable when up against Lingard until his opposite number was forced off. Icon Sport via Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Julian Draxler - 8 Linked up well with Di Maria and Mbappe playing off him, even if he did not have a hand in either goal. Getty Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Angel Di Maria - 8 Booed from his very first touch and suffered from nerves in a difficult first half but responded brilliantly after the break, powering the Parisians to victory. Getty Images Player ratings: Manchester United vs PSG Kylian Mbappe - 8 Had a quiet start, then suddenly hit the gas, motoring through United’s defence and scoring a deserved goal in the second half. Getty Images

The brutal reality was he responded in a way no one at United expected, and it badly caught them out.

You could certainly sense the thinking of the supporters goading Di Maria. This was a former player who never wanted to be at United, and - much worse - made that clear with so many supine performances, before leaving as soon as he could having made no impact. You could thereby sense the thinking of Young, and the rest of the United team. This was a player they felt produced those awful performances precisely because he didn’t have the personality for it. From the off, they felt he just “couldn’t hack” playing for United. “Fanny”, notoriously, was one common description.

It was entirely logical, then, that his former teammates would look to effectively bully him out of the game.

It’s just they likely, and ironically, went too far.

Because, even if it is true that Di Maria is a sensitive soul - maybe even meek - you can only push such characters so far. Especially characters that have successfully come through the hugely macho culture of Argentine football. What they really don’t like is being affronted, humiliated, emasculated.

This was surely how Di Maria felt at the moment he lay by the side of the pitch, something that Tuchel touched on afterwards.

“The guy is very competitive, like all South American guys, and if you tease him it does not make him weaker of course,” the German said, before admitting the crowd reaction also struck him. “But it was kind of a hard time, and I was a bit surprised… he maybe wanted to show too much. Not calm enough in the first half, but he stepped up in the second half.”

Di Maria was left hurt by the encounter with former teammate Young (BT Sport)

In other words, very shortly after Young had levelled him.

It also turned the game into an engaging personality play, not least because it was specifically Young that also forced Di Maria out of the United team in the first place back in 2014-15. Here we was now looking to force him out of the game.

It just brought out Di Maria’s force of personality.

He finally delivered at Old Trafford, and in more ways than one. There was first of all the quality of that cross for Presnel Kimpembe.

Di Maria came back stronger (Getty Images)

There was certainly force in his celebration. Di Maria threw every boo back at the crowd and showed they had got to him, as he shouted back “fuck off putas”. The fact some of it was in English, a language he never learned, made the message all the clearer. He took something from his time at United, then.

Di Maria soon after had a bottle thrown at him. United will likely face sanction for that, but what will hurt some of the supporters more was the player’s reaction. Di Maria picked the bottle up, and mockingly pretended to drink from it.

That was already turning the situation on its head, but it also turned an image - and a perception - on its head. Here was Di Maria showing bottle and more than bottle.

There were spells in the second half when Young just couldn’t get close to him. Such was the chasm in ability and application that it at times seemed a joke that this improvised right-back was once keeping a player like Di Maria out of the United team.

Di Maria ended up with the last laugh (AFP/Getty)

It emphasised there was more to his time at Old Trafford than him just not being able to take it. It also emphasised that there is more to Di Maria.

It turns out barging him, booing him and trying to bottle him wasn’t such a good idea. It all pushed him too far, and a level far above United on the night.