Luis Diaz has been enduring a barren start to 2025 on the goalscoring front for Liverpool, but he had no difficulty in finding the net for his country overnight, and it came at the expense of one of his Anfield teammates!
The 28-year-old lined up in opposition to Alisson Becker as Colombia travelled to Brazil in World Cup qualifying action, and the Reds’ number 7 equalised in style for his nation shortly before half-time.
Diaz equalises in style for Colombia
Accepting a pass from veteran playmaker James Rodriguez, Lucho took a couple of touches to set himself before arrowing an unstoppable low shot into the far corner of the Brazilian goalkeeper’s net to restore parity.
As Diaz and his teammates wheeled away in celebration, Liverpool’s number 1 got to his feet and glared with a death stare at the defenders in front of him for allowing the goalscorer so much time and space to shoot for goal, with the 32-year-old’s ire clear to see from his body language.
However, Alisson and Brazil would have the last laugh as, nine minutes into second half stoppage time, Vinicius Junior netted a long-range winner to lift his nation into second place in the CONMEBOL standings and leave Colombia occupying the lowest automatic qualification berth.
Can that goal prompt a revival in form for Diaz?
Having scored only once in 18 matches for Liverpool since the start of January, hopefully Diaz’s superb strike on international duty will see him regain greater confidence in front of goal over the final few weeks of the season.
He’ll have another opportunity to build on that fine effort when Colombia host Paraguay on Tuesday, where a home win would see Los Cafeteros leapfrog their opponents in the qualification table and take a step closer to joining Wataru Endo and Japan in securing a place at next year’s finals.
The 28-year-old’s future at club level has been in the spotlight of late, with Fabrizio Romano claiming earlier this week that there’s a ‘concrete possibility’ of our number 7 leaving Anfield in the summer amid rumoured interest from the Saudi Pro League.
If Diaz can embark on a hot scoring streak off the back of his goal against Brazil and finish the season as brilliantly as he started it, the likelihood of Liverpool cashing in on him would surely become virtually nonexistent.
You can view Diaz’s goal for Colombia below (from 3:25), via CONMEBOL on YouTube:
