Depending on the formation that the coach decides would fit the best for a particular game, the offensive side of a team usually consists of a few players with exceptional finishing power and threat opposing skills. For Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp now has five players with the mentioned qualities, one of which we will discuss in Luis Diaz Biography.
To focus on the main character of our story, we should shift the topic toward Luis Diaz. The Winger has recently come to the spotlight out of nowhere and signed a five-year contract with Liverpool. Coming from a hard life, Luis had always seen football as a way to overcome his difficulties, and now that we look at his career, it becomes crystal clear that his dedication has paid off.
Let’s move into the article and talk more about him in the further section of Luis Diaz biography.
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We aim to explore most areas of Luis Diaz life story, including his childhood, his road to fame, his senior and international career, and his personal life. So, stay with us to get a full understanding of this man’s lifestyle and career.
Luis Diaz introduction
Before we get to the story of this 26-year-old, we consider it necessary to provide you with some basic Luis Diaz stats, so you would be further familiarized with the player.
- Name: Luis Fernando Díaz Marulanda
- Age: 26
- Height: 1.80 m
- Nationality: Columbian
- Current Team: Liverpool
- Number: 23
- Position: Winger
Now buckle up and let us dive deep into the Luis Diaz biography and talk about every aspect of his life.
Luis Diaz’s childhood and early days
Luis Diaz real name is Luis Fernando Díaz Marulanda. He was born on January 13, 1997, into a Columbian family. Silenis Marulanda and Luis Manuel Diaz are his parents. Colombia’s Barrancas, La Guajira, is where Luis Diaz was born.
Luis was the first child of the family. Luis is one of three children—all boys, no girls—that his parents’ union delivered. Childhood years were spent by Luis Diaz at his village in Barrancas, a city extremely close to a mining area of the country. So, his father might have been a miner with a low income.
Since the main product of the village was goat he grew up eating almost exclusively goat meat, and this explains why he later suffered from Malnutrition. The Diaz family lacked a television. He so turned to his grandparents, who read him stories every night.
The Colombian winger loved spending time with his younger siblings at Barrancas. The brothers of Luis Diaz are Roger David Diaz (also known as Roller) and Jesus Manuel Diaz. The Diaz brothers, who both played professional football, are three years apart in age.
The neighborhood where Luis Diaz’s parents grew up is similar to many other poor regions of Colombia. The town of Barrancas is frequently overlooked. There, state neglect affects a lot of families negatively. Malnutrition thus emerges as one of their biggest issues.
Thankfully, football turned into a refuge and a way out of poverty for this Barrancas native.
The family disagreement over football
You might be surprised to hear that Luis Diaz’s family first disagreed with his decision to play football. Well, at least his mother did. Since his father had a bitter experience with football, his mother didn’t want her kid to suffer the same fate. But let us go down the story in this section of Luis Diaz biography to reveal more.
Luis Diaz was the top student in his age group at his father’s soccer school. He was adored by everyone at Club Baller de Barrancas. The child had made soccer the main goal of his life at this age, despite his mother’s initial disapproval.
The father of Luis Diaz claims that there was a period when he and his wife had a disagreement. Luis, Roger, and Jesüs were the three children who Silenis Marulanda did not want to spend their entire lives playing football.
Luis Diaz’s parents came to the mutual terms that their children would grow up playing football and going to school. The player finished his elementary schooling and attended his Dad’s football academy. Without his mother, Silenis Marulanda, that would not have been possible.
The player of our story didn’t want to go to high school. Luis Diaz’s mother punished him at first. Mom threatened to stop him from playing football if he didn’t finish high school. Luis Diaz had no choice but to force himself to read his books as a result. The anguish of understanding his notebooks had to be overcome by the child.
Entering football
Here’s the part of Luis Diaz biography where we get to his football career. Luis Diaz never imagined that he would be able to pay for his own medical care to treat his acute malnutrition in addition to helping his family out of poverty. Yet as the narrative progresses, you begin to realize that everything depends on how committed you are to achieving your objectives and that you are prepared to overlook any obstacles in your way.
The Winger’s early years were split between the football and fantasy worlds. Luis Diáz had a tendency to mimic Ronaldinho’s actions, which he had seen in videos. Luis Diaz fantasized about being Ronaldinho as he demonstrated that on his local field.
Also, Luis Diaz would set aside time after each of the incredible number 10’s matches to duplicate each and every play Ronaldinho had performed. He spent many hours doing so in the neighborhood of Los Cerezos, which is where his family’s home was when he was growing up in Barrancas.
Luis Diaz made sure to recreate each component of Ronaldinho’s magic from scratch. Luis would keep trying the trick until it worked each time he got it wrong. The youngster would only take a nap after mastering every Ronaldinho technique.
Senior career
Let us start the career part of Luis Diaz Biography.
He participated in an open trial held by Atlético Junior in 2014 when he was 17 years old, and he was impressed enough to join the youth team.
The young man was chosen for a trial of 22 soccer players while he was in his mid-teens. Successful footballers were chosen to compete for the Colombian indigenous people’s national team in a South American football match.
On this particular occasion, though, the thin left winger stood out from the pack, and one of the club’s monitoring scouts, Juan Carlos Cantillo, informed his colleagues of his skill.
He joined the senior team of Atlético Junior in 2016 after making an impression throughout the competition and was promptly reassigned to the farm team Barranquilla.
He received the opportunity to join the senior side of Atlético Junior after spending a year on the feeder team. Porto, the biggest club in PORTUGAL, made him an offer of a five-year deal after he had played for them for two years. He was given the opportunity to train with the top players in the world; therefore, accepting this offer had great significance for him. He spent three years playing for Porto before transferring to Liverpool.
Soon after Luis Diaz’s £49 million transfer from Porto to Liverpool at the close of the January transfer window, Jürgen Klopp’s opinion of him struck a chord in Colombia, which is located more than 5,000 miles away.
“He is a player who is hungry for success and knows you have to fight to get what you want.”
In the current season, he has made eight appearances in Premier League and scored three times for Liverpool.
International career
On August 27, 2018, immediately following the 2018 World Cup, Diaz was recalled to the Colombian national team. His country had enormous expectations for him as Juan Cuadrado’s successor. Diaz has grown to become one of Colombia’s most well-known players since joining the national team.
Diáz’s victory against Brazil and helping his team to secure third place in the 2021 Copa América is among his greatest achievements for his nation. He scored a spectacular volley on June 23, 2022, against Neymar‘s Brazil. Diaz scored again against Argentina a few days later. He then scored two more goals versus Peru.
Alongside the legendary Lionel Messi, the forward received the honor of finishing the 2021 Copa América with the most goals.
Luis Diaz lost his chance to play for his nation at the 2022 World Cup when he was called into duty. Trent Alexander-Arnold caused Diaz an ankle injury during the game. The Colombian international did not need surgery, according to scans, but the problem held him out until after the World Cup.
Luiz Diaz father
Let us go wild on the storyline a little bit to talk about Luiz Diaz’s parents and especially his father. The Father of Luis Diaz is a football instructor and a tough character.
“Club Baller de Barrancas” is the name of the soccer academy owned by Luis Diaz’s father. He still instructs young players in soccer school nowadays.
Before becoming a football coach, Manuel was a player, but his career was considered a failed one.
Mr. Manuel found it challenging to cope with the consequences of a failed football career. Luis Diaz’s father swore to help football students reach their full potential because he himself never succeeded. More so to witness one or both of his sons pursuing the goals of the family.
The same pitch where all of his boys first booted a soccer ball is where the great Dad trains young children. Luis Diaz became the person he is now as a result of the discipline and affection his father showed him.
Luis Diaz love life and children
The opportunity for Diaz to start his own family is something we will discuss in the Luis Diaz biography.
When they were nothing, some women chose to stay with their future footballing spouses and partners.
Love is another theme in Luis Diaz’s biography. It describes how a woman supported him even though he was completely helpless. When his thin appearance scared off attractive women, at his lowest point, Gera Ponce was genuinely in love with Luis Diaz.
In addition to having incredible beauty, Gera Ponce also has a good heart. She immediately fell in love after meeting Luis. Gera always carried him on her shoulders and gave him everything. Most importantly, she observed his transformation from a thin man to a man with money and power.
Gera Ponce is still that kind of selfless woman today. Luis Diaz has a female companion with her whenever he plays football. She is the ideal wife since she sacrificed her own plans to meet his emotional and professional needs.
Because Gera was by his side, Luis Diaz now shares all of his achievements with him.
On November 4, 2021, Gera Ponce gave birth to their daughter. The Colombian’s long-awaited chance to see his child for the first time has finally arrived.
Luis Diaz off the field
You probably aren’t familiar with Luis Diaz’s personal life outside of football, as he tends to keep it personal and off the news. But we would explore his life outside the field in this section of Luis Diaz Biography.
The aunt of Luis Diaz claims that coconut rice, fried red snapper, fried plantains, passion fruit, and blackberry juice are Luis’ favorite foods.
Whether you go to Luis Diaz’s house in Liverpool or Colombia, you probably won’t leave without hearing him training and dancing to his favorite music.
After Luis exits the field, football doesn’t end for him. He loves to do football stunts right there in the living room (we have seen the videos on his social media). Luis Diaz is a highly skilled house football player. The Colombian and his future bride Gera have a unique area they go to enjoy themselves when the Colombian plays football in Portugal. The Oporto Buggy Adventure in Baltar, Portugal, is a tourist attraction.
Luis Diaz honors and achievements
As always, we want to finish what we have started with a proper ending, and for Luis Diaz Biography, we have decided to present you with a list of honors and awards that this player has amassed up until now.
In his early days of senior football, when he was a part of Atlético Junior, he managed to help his team win two league titles, one Copa Colombia and a Superliga Colombiana.
He never faced a trophy drought as the awards started to come in with Porto too. The team won two league titles with Luis Diaz on the team. Plus, two Taça de Portugal and one Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira trophy can be seen among Diaz’s achievements when he was playing for Porto.
With Liverpool, he hasn’t had the chance to lift the Premier League title trophy yet, but this doesn’t mean that his run has been trophyless. The 2021–22 season was a great one for Liverpool as the team won both FA and EFL Cups and then the FA Community Shield.
For his individual awards, 2021 year has been his peak performance time, with a total of 8 awards and honors won in the year. Some of these honors include the Copa América Golden Boot, Primeira Liga Player of the Month, Copa América Tournament Revelation, and Primeira Liga Goal of the Month.
Now that he is a part of Liverpool, we are looking forward to seeing him grabbing and collecting every trophy and award there is in the Premier League and the most recognized football nation, England.
To conclude everything About Luis Diaz, we should mention that Footballium wishes the best for this amazing player, and we hope to see him on bigger stages and in greater competitions.
