Buenos Diaz

Luis Diaz's journey has taken him from humble origins in Colombia to stardom at Liverpool. A year since his father's kidnapping, he's been reinvigorated under new manager Arne Slot

- Chris Flanagan

Luis Diaz's father looked on the verge of collapse. Up in the stands of the Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Melendez in Barranquilla, Colombia's fourth city, emotion poured out of him. Just a week earlier, he had been released from a terrifying 13-day kidnapping ordeal. Captured by gunmen at a petrol station in his home town, he'd been taken to the mountains, with no clue when or if he'd find freedom.

Now, on a sweltering November night almost exactly 12 months ago, Diaz Snr was wearing a bright yellow Colombia shirt, unable to contain tears of joy. His son had just scored twice in the space of four minutes, past Liverpool teammate Alisson, to turn a World Cup qualifier against Brazil on its head and give Los Cafeteros victory in front of a raucous 40,000-plus crowd.

Mobbed by his team-mates, well aware of what their friend had been through over the previous few weeks, Diaz himself was no less emotional. From a poor indigenous community in the far north of the country, who often are treated as second-class citizens in their own homeland, Diaz had risen to become the darling of a nation.

THE NORTH COLOMBIAN NOODLE

No indigenous Colombian has ever reached world football’s elite before, and there are good reasons why. Appropriately nicknamed ‘Lucho’ – the diminutive form of Luis that can also mean ‘fighter’ – Diaz grew up in the small town of Barrancas in the region of La Guajira, close to the Caribbean Sea and the border with Venezuela. The climate is arid and hot, unlike the lusher capital Bogota, 450 miles south.

“In La Guajira, there’s not much financial support, and few decent pitches – most are dirt pitches, which makes it difficult to develop players,” says John ‘Pocillo’ Diaz, who’d later coach the rising star. “For a talent like Lucho to emerge from those conditions was incredible.”