The 28-year-old Luis Diaz leaves Liverpool as a reigning Premier League champion, along with his FA Cup and League Cup winners medals.
He combined magnificent dribbling with a decent return in front of goal.
Diaz got 25 goal contributions last season, and will leave a void in Liverpool’s attack, but now is not the time to worry about that, here are a few great things that Luis Diaz did in a Liverpool shirt.
Diaz’s Manchester City dribble
This will be my abiding memory of Luis Diaz at Liverpool.
The Reds were up against it in a huge Premier League title fight against Manchester City in 2024.
Diaz took control of the ball on the edge of the Liverpool penalty area, he took the ball in full stride and could see the acres of space further up the pitch.
But it isn’t that easy. One of the Premier League’s premier defenders Kyle Walker came across, Diaz jinked and knocked the ball past him on the halfway line.
He gets level with the City penalty area, Rodri, lung busted from running back to catch him gets brushed aside by Diaz.
He faints one way, and then the other, before Walker just about recovers to send the ball out for a corner.
Diaz’s pace, power, running, street footballing ability and determination was epitomised by that thrilling run.
Diaz’s Bayer Leverkusen hat-trick
Last season, when Liverpool faced the German champions, Bayer Leverkusen, in the Champions League, Diaz starred.
With an hour gone, and the deadlock yet to be broken, the Liverpool crowd increased the volume, and the Reds followed suit.
Mo Salah slid the ball in behind the defence, before Diaz ran off the backline and chipped Lukas Hradecky in the Leverkusen goal.
Cody Gakpo made it two, before Salah played a perfect ball to the back post before Diaz took it down and slid it home.
Into added time, the match was done, but Diaz was not. Surging forward, hungry for another goal, he was there to tuck home after Darwin Nunez’s shot was saved.
This was Luis Diaz’s first hat-trick for the club, and showed how much his output had improved in his final season with the Reds.
Diaz’s versatility
From the young Diaz we saw, when he first came to England, that I remember Gary Neville raving about in the League Cup final.
Speedy, quick with his feet and lively, in reference to Liverpool’s recruitment process, I remember him saying: “They’ve got another one here”.
He was the Sadio Mane replacement, and he replaced exactly the liveliness that we had seen from Mane earlier in his Liverpool career, and that was in itself not an easy task.
Later in his career, Diaz developed his game, learning to make his output more consistent, playing through the middle, and honing his vicious shot.
The winger will be remembered too for his willingness to carry on in the face of the horror of his father’s kidnapping.
Farewell to flying Luis Diaz, our undisputedly exciting supersonic winger from Barrancas, thank you, see you next season.