Football comes easy to him. He is a joyful player
Sportsmail visits Liverpool superstar Luis Diaz’s first clubs in Colombia and meets friends, family and coaches bursting with pride ahead of the Paris final
IT IS just after 7am at Cancha Bombona, the simple training ground of Barranquilla FC, but already a group of ambitious teenage footballers are hard at work. One young man, with No28 on his shorts and a distinctive haircut, catches the eye. As the temperature soars, he stays cool in possession and the calmness he has on the ball, with his left foot, is a welcome distraction to the constant roar and rumble of wagons on the adjacent highway.
His name is Jesus Diaz. He is 17 and comes from a gifted footballing family. He has two brothers. One is called Roller and he plays in Portugal’s third division. The other also had a spell in Portugal but he has moved on to such an extent that, this weekend, he will try to win the Champions League with Liverpool.
And this is the reason Sportsmail is in this industrial city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. It was on these pitches — and with this proud club — that Luis Diaz, one of the stars of the Premier League season, began to hone the talent that, in time, may see him become one of the best in the world.
TO SAY the people of Barranquilla are thrilled by what Diaz is doing is an understatement. The Coliseo Sport Bar in the middle of town hums when the Premier League is being broadcast and a Liverpool Supporters’ Group has seen its membership balloon since he moved to Anfield in January.
Diaz, with his electric pace and trickery, has a skill-set that makes him stand out from the crowd and it quickly becomes apparent that’s always been the case. He was born in Barrancas, a town 200 miles and a six-hour drive to the east of here, but football changed the direction of his life in January 2015.
‘He came to try out,’ Francisco Sanchez, an administrator at Barranquilla, explains. ‘There were 3,000 players but all we could see was Luis. It was his speed, the velocity and technicality of his play. It was his mentality: practise, practise, practise. He was so humble but he was clearly so special.’
Magia (magic) is a word that comes up often in conversations about Diaz. He was skinny as a boy but he dreamt of emulating his hero Ronaldinho, with fast feet, skills and electric changes of pace and it was immediately obvious to all at Barranquilla that there was something different about him.
Quickly the club moved him over and he lived with his uncle in an apartment. Nicknamed ‘Lucho’, he would be picked up at sunrise each morning on the equivalent of a school bus, transporting him over to Bombona, on the outskirts of town, on a journey that would take the best part of an hour.
‘Lucho always had a smile on his face in training because football comes easy to him,’ Arturo Reyes, the knowledgeable and respected head coach of Barranquilla, says.
Reyes is one of the most important figures in Diaz’s life. He was assistant coach when Diaz arrived in Barranquilla and even gave him his first Colombia senior cap in September 2018 — against Argentina in New Jersey — during a brief stint as caretaker coach of the national side.
‘From the first day I saw Luis, I could see he was very skilful and could dribble past players,’ Reyes says when training is over. ‘But he was “individualista” — he played on his own but over time he understood he had to play with his teammates. He learned very quickly. The greatest quality Luis has is his ability to adapt.’
Resilience, it seems, is another huge asset. Some of the coaches at Barranquilla questioned whether he was physically strong enough to withstand the intensity of work but there was a transformation when games started.
‘Luis was 18 when he arrived here,’ says Fernel Diaz, who is
Barranquilla’s minor divisions director but is no relation. ‘A coach called Juan Carlos Cantillo started telling people a player had come who was special so we all headed for this pitch to watch him.
‘He was very skilful, loved to dribble. He was skinny though, very thin. He was tall and he was strong — tough, too. But above all he showed he could beat people. What he is showing at Liverpool he showed here from day one.’
Laionell Polo, the master of education and psychology, started working at Barranquilla around the same time as Diaz made his move. ‘He was a joyful player, very spontaneous,’ says Polo, his eyes lighting up as he casts his mind back. ‘Lucho had a way of playing,
Special report: Pages 74-75