The few English footballers who reach the very top have all followed a well-trodden path from boy to man in the modern era.
Said player is spotted playing for his local team between the ages of six and eight, is snapped up by whatever Premier League behemoth is closest or most interested. That youngster then spends the rest of their youth training in state-of-the-art facilities, on carpet-like pitches, under the tutelage of some of the best nurturers of embryonic talent the game has to offer.
New Liverpool trickster Luis Diaz never had that luxury. Not spotted by the age of 18, dusty pitches on the rural, indigenous Atlantic coast in Colombia were where he showcased his skills.
That was until he was given a trial by his local-ish big club – one chance to make his mark, and despite his physical deficiencies and impoverished background, there was nothing going to stand in his way, even if he needed a helping hand from an iconic, fuzzy-haired legend along the way.
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“The area where he comes from has been forgotten about by the government, as often happens where coal mining used to be the only employer,” Diaz’s former coach at Colombian side Junior Julio Comesana tells i.
“Luis was certainly not fortunate to be born there, but his hard life taught him much. His family had nothing, so he worked for everything.
“Later, I visited his family home and saw the austerity he came from. He lived with us in Junior, so we could keep his body developing, but he always appreciated everything anyone did for him due to this background.”
From the town of Barrancas close to the Venezuelan border, Diaz came from a local Wayuu community of indigenous people, six hours drive from the nearest big club – Junior.
One open trial of around 2500 players took place in 2015, without much hope of finding the next superstar, especially one who was already embarking on adult life, but the watching scouts found a needle in a haystack.
“When I saw Luis for the first time it was in the B-team of Barranquilla (Junior’s affiliate club, not long after being spotted), and my first thought was that he was really thin, but he somehow appeared very strong,” Comesana continues. “I thought how had he been picked out, given how he looked?”
Such doubts over his physique would follow Diaz to this day, but he has learned to not only cope, he uses his wiry frame to his advantage.
“His build is deceptive,” World Soccer Magazine’s Portugal correspondent Tom Kundert, who covered Diaz during his time at Porto, tells i. “He is a lot stronger than he looks, and has even scored some excellent headers this season, getting the better of powerful centre-backs. He could always ‘handle himself’.”
Picked up by Junior, he struggled to make an impact in the youth setup, with negativity around his build at the forefront of many of his coaches’ minds.
Then came that stroke of luck even the most talented of individuals needs to really find fame – some star appeal.
Named in Colombia’s squad for the first ever Copa America for Indigenous Peoples in 2015, Diaz impressed in the tournament, scoring two goals as Colombia got to the final.
Diaz’s coach, Carlos “El Pibe” Valderrama, was won over and returned to his former club with a glowing recommendation – removing any lingering uncertainty over his abilities to become one of the few from his impoverished region to make it as a professional footballer.
“If El Pibe says he was good, he must be good,” Comesana adds. “I thought we needed to get him into the first team setup at Junior quickly to develop his body but I could see straight away he had the ability. We saw it as a great opportunity for us. He was a player with incredible ability but no fat, and we just needed to help him gain in size.
“Many were telling me to give up on him, but that wasn’t an option for me. Not with the ability he had.”
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Now fully aware of the talent they had at their disposal, it was a matter of how best to nurture this shy, humble, and underdeveloped teenager.
Diaz got that first-team taste of football at Barranquilla in Colombia’s second division in 2016, which brought its challenges, given he was living with the club by this point and being fed properly, with dietary supplements also a necessity. His talent, however, shone through.
“Most players, especially when they are young, believe they can do lots of things but are unable to do them, as they aren’t good enough yet,” Comesana adds. “Luis was the opposite. He could do everything, we just had to convince him that he could.
“I remember his first game for us at Junior in the Colombian Cup after his time at Barranquilla, for B-teams,” Comesana says. “He played on the right for a while, then the left, then through the middle. He surprised us with this. We did not think then he would be a star, as kids like him don’t normally make it, but after his first game for the first team against Cerro Porteno, we knew he would be.”
The Porto South American scouting network again came up trumps as Diaz, four years after kicking balls around dusty pitches back home, was off to Europe, where he would join a long line of Latin Americans to use the Portuguese giants as the perfect stepping stone on the path to bigger and better things.
“He showed flashes of brilliance right from when he signed in the summer of 2019, often scoring outstanding goals – his memorable strike against Manchester City after a long diagonal run in the Champions League and an acrobatic effort against Marítimo come to mind – but he was inconsistent,” Kundert added.
“This season though, buoyed by his exploits in the Copa America in the summer, he went from inconsistent to consistently brilliant. Instead of doing something eye-catching every three or four games, he was magnificent in virtually every match he played for Porto in 2021-22 – often unstoppable as attested by the 18 goal contributions in 18 games.”
Liverpool knew they couldn’t wait until the summer to make their move, with even Jurgen Klopp taken aback by how quickly the Colombian has settled into life in the Premier League, describing him as already looking like “a Liverpool player” after just a few training sessions.
And in a team who thrives on relentless running and energy, those who know Diaz best feel he could not be in a better place to fulfil his unlikely rags to riches story, with the 25-year-old no stranger to giving every inch of his will for everything that comes his way.
“I try not to bother Luis too much now, as he is quiet and doesn’t want to be talking all day,” Comesena says. “But he knows that we love him, as he is an example to all Colombian footballers. To have the courage to work as hard as he has every day to get where he is, where he is from, is an inspiration.
“You can tell just how well he is going to fit in by how welcoming Klopp was when he arrived, with that warmth of affection. That affection is important to players like Luis, who have overcome so much. In such an emotional environment, he will thrive I have no doubt. And he deserves it.”
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