Liverpool reap off-field benefits thanks to Luis Diaz's remarkable origin story

The signing of Luis Diaz has sparked a remarkable surge of interest in Liverpool and the Premier League in Colombia.

Shirt sales, TV viewing figures and Diaz also becoming a national hero following his £37.5m move from Porto to Anfield in January.

But one of the reasons that Diaz is so popular is because of his remarkable fairytale, a real rags-to-riches story of growing up in poverty to becoming a superstar - albeit the people love him because he has remained humble.

Diaz, 25, was born in Barrancas (a poor area), and grew up playing on sand pitches which he says helped his close control and is the reason behind his remarkable dribbling.

His family has an indigenous heritage: Diaz is not actually Wayuu (the 300,000 strong ethnic group) himself but his first club Barranquilla goes into towns recruiting players and setting up trial matches - and it was Colombia legend Carlos Valderrama who first spotted him.

Valderrama was the coordinator of the Indigenous National Team, and Diaz's journey effectively started in the 2015 Copa Americana de Pueblos Indígenas and saw him rise from Barranquilla, to Atletico Junior and then Porto where he had three years before joining Liverpool.

Even now Diaz looks thin, and his first clubs and coaches were worried he was suffering from malnutrition and put him on a diet and programme to improve his strength - but it is actually his natural physical shape.

Though Diaz’s father still lives in Barrancas, Diaz had a very down-to-earth home in Portugal and he has already impressed everyone at Liverpool with his attitude, especially the way he has fitted in and also adapted to the English game.

Barranquilla president Ernesto Rafael Herrera told this column: “For us in the Barranquilla Futbol