Calvo: Juventus ‘confident’ regarding Angel Di Maria contract renewal

As 2023 has gone, the possibility of Angel Di Maria signing a contract extension at Juventus has seemingly become more and more possible. It has, however, come with a very large piece of cautious optimism because it’s hard to truly know how much pull returning home currently has on the 35-year-old Argentine.

Prior to kickoff in Rome on Sunday, we got an official on-record statement when it comes to how Juventus feel about potentially seeing Di Maria sticking around for a little while longer.

New Juventus Chief Football Officer Francesco Calvo expressed his confidence in Di Maria sticking around the club beyond his current contract, one that expires at the end of the 2022-23 season. And considering that this has long been looked at as a one-year situation before Di Maria heads home to Argentina, the fact that somebody from Juve’s new-look front office is thinking that keeping him around beyond June is something that we didn’t think was really all that much of a possibility last summer.

Speaking to DAZN prior to kickoff between Juventus and Roma, Calvo said the following regarding Di Maria and a potential extension:

“Di Maria is certainly a technical leader on the pitch as well as in the dressing room, so he is very important. We always want to keep important players and the evidence of that is the renewal of Danilo during the week.”

“With Di Maria we are talking, we will give some time to conduct negotiations when there is something to be announced we will do, we are confident.”

Outside of expressing confidence in a potential contract extension getting done, that is a man who is not trying to show the entirety of the card he currently has.

Negotiations with Di Maria probably won’t be easy because of the simple fact that he does have the pull of going back to Argentina already there. And surely, knowing that he’s still playing at a very high level and wants to potentially compete for trophies, what’s going on what Juventus off the field and everything going on with that could factor in as well.

But I keep coming back to the fact that Calvo, who is just a few weeks into his new job, speaking openly that he thinks something could get done with Di Maria. That’s a big deal. And as Di Maria has proven over the last 2 ¹⁄₂ months, just because the World Cup is over doesn’t mean that his play is going to be a concern. It’s been the opposite. Di Maria is in the best run of form since coming to Juventus, and it’s been his clear passion that has maybe been just as impressive as some of the goals he’s scored.

So, if Juve’s front office is confident that they can get Di Maria to stay in Turin for another season, who are we to disagree with that? Surely the way Di Maria has played since the restart that he’s still capable of being a very important player.