Karim Benzema has admitted his surprise that Angel di Maria failed at Manchester United, but backed his former Real Madrid teammate to succeed at Paris Saint-Germain.
The Argentine winger, 27, sealed a £44m move to Les Parisiens in August, some 12 months after the Red Devils spent a British record £59.7m to take him from Spain.
Despite their hefty expenditure of recent summers, the big-spending French champions have failed to get past the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Nevertheless, Benzema expects Di Maria - who won the competition with Real in 2014 - to be the type of game-changer that PSG need on the European stage.
"Di Maria is a great guy! I have a great understanding with him, not just in a football sense but as a person too," he told Le Parisien. "He has it all - speed, percussion and technique.
"At Real Madrid, he did everything - he played in the middle, on the wing and even at left-back. He is cool and funny. A great teammate. After the great season he had made in 2014, when we won the Champions League and he reached the World Cup final, I was very surprised it didn't work out at United.
"In a team, there is not one player who can do everything by himself, but Di Maria can help a lot in the Champions League because he has the experience of big games and knows all about playing at a high level."
Di Maria made his debut in the 3-0 win at AS Monaco two weeks ago.
