Luis Diaz: Porto and Colombia winger
Luis Díaz is a Colombian professional footballer who plays for Portuguese club Porto as a winger primarily on the left. Before joining Porto, he played for Club Atletico Popular Junior FC, often known as Atletico Junior.
Diaz’s professional debut for Atletico Junior’s reserve team came against Deportivo Pereira on 26 April 2016. He scored his first goal for the reserve team in a 2-1 away win against Cucuta Deportivo. Atletico Junior decided to promote Diaz to the first team in June 2017. His first team debut for Atletico Junior came against Once Caldas which the latter won 3-2 at their home. Diaz netted his first goal for the first team of Atletico Junior against Paraguayan club Cerro Porteño in a Copa Sudamericana match which the Colombian club won 3-1 (Copa Sudamericana is the South American version of the UEFA Europa League). In the 2018 season which would be his last full season with Atletico Junior, he scored 16 goals in total including braces against Atletico Huila, Rionegro Aguilas and Once Caldas. For the 2019 season, he played only the first half of the season. Overall, Diaz featured 74 times for Atletico Junior scoring 19 goals and providing 6 assists.
In July 2019, Portuguese giants FC Porto announced that they had signed Luis Diaz from Atletico Junior for a reported fee of €7 million. Diaz’s first appearance for Porto came against Russian club Krasnodar in a UEFA Champions League qualifying match. He scored his first goal in the return leg at Estadio do Dragao although Porto lost 2-3 to Krasnodar and the Russians went through to the next round on away goals rule. Diaz’s domestic debut came against Gil Vicente FC in the Liga NOS. In his first season for the Dragões, he played 50 times scoring 14 goals and assisting 7 goals in all competitions. Diaz started the 2020-21 well scoring twice and assisting once in 4 matches including a goal at the Etihad Stadium against Manchester City in a 1-3 loss for Porto.
Having represented Colombia at the 2017 U20 South American Championship, Diaz received his maiden call up to the senior national team in August 2018 for the international friendlies against Venezuela and Argentina in September. His international debut for Los Cafeteros came against the latter after he came off the bench replacing Juan Cuadrado. Diaz netted his first goal for Los Cafeteros in a match against South Koreans which the Koreans went on to win 2-1. Diaz was selected for the Colombia squad for the 2019 Copa America in Brazil.
