Liverpool winger Luis Diaz says his self-belief comes from La Guajira childhood

Liverpool winger Luis Diaz says he treats every game as a chance to seek revenge for the difficulties he has endured to get him to this point in his career.

The 25-year-old, who arrived at Anfield in January from Porto for an initial fee of £37.5million, has already made such an impact there is every chance he will start in the Champions League final in Paris later this month.

It is a remarkable rise from his humble beginnings in La Guajira – one of Colombia’s most neglected areas, where in 2019 the official death rate from malnutrition for children under five among the indigenous Wayuu people, of which Diaz is one, was nearly six times the national rate.

One of his hobbies as a malnourished child himself was to watch trains pass by his small village of Barrancas carrying coal, much of which was destined for Europe.

He could surely not have imagined then that years later he would head to the same continent and set the football world alight.

Diaz, watched from the stands by his younger brother Jesus, was in tears at the final whistle of Liverpool’s 3-2 Champions League semi-final second-leg win over Villarreal after coming off the bench at half-time to put in a man-of-the-match performance and secure a 5-2 aggregate victory on Tuesday evening.

Asked where he got his self-belief from, Diaz told UEFA’s YouTube channel: “From La Guajira. It comes from my roots. I always played football in my town, in my homeland.

Each game is a revenge for always going out to look for more, I know what it costs and I have to take advantage of every moment, every minute I have.- Luis Diaz

“They are my characteristics, they have instilled in me several things that I have today and now I have grown much more. That’s my game.

“Each game is a