Reserve this space on your calendar now: Sunday, February 27, 11:30 am (Colombian time) What’s going to happen? It will be played at Wembley, nothing less than the final of the Carabao Cup, with Luis Díaz as an alternative in a Liverpool vs Chelsea match that from the preview almost takes your breath away.
This Sunday two of the most powerful in England -in the world, in fact- will collide in a match with a special flavor for Colombia, which will pray not only for action but for some celebration of its credit in Jürguen Klopp’s team, which has reached here after getting rid of Arsenal, while his rival comes from eliminating Tottenham.
Well, it is the turn for a Díaz who plays dressed in red with a naturalness that little can be believed in the first world of football. He will be the fourth national to bid for the trophy, which was only lifted by Juan Guillermo Cuadrado in his brief spell at Chelsea, and which neither Hamilton Ricard (Middlesbrough, 1997) nor David Ospina (Arsenal, 2017/2018) managed to win.
Díaz reaches this final with the support of many great events in which he had action and even goals that brought titles.
In Colombia, for example, history is written in its beginnings with blue and red flashes: with Atlético Junior he was champion of the Colombia Cup in 2017, in the duel that Junior won after winning 3-1 (1-1 and 2-0 ) on aggregate against Independiente Medellín.
He would later win the 2018 League II in a duel against the same red team from Antioquia, scoring a goal (minute 49) in the 4-1 victory of the first leg and going blank in the 3-1 second leg. The following year he would repeat the final against Pasto and, although he did not play that final because he was in the Colombian National Team, his team won on penalties (1-1 overall in regular time).
One more crown would await him with the Junior shirt, that of the 2019 Super League, in which he started in the first leg (1-2) and in the second leg (1-0) against Deportes Tolima, another title that was happily resolved for him from the 11 steps.
The time would come to emigrate to Porto, where he was crowned champion of the League after a good campaign throughout the year in 2020, the year in which he played two more finals with the Portuguese: the National Cup against Benfica, which his team won by 1-2 and it is perhaps the only bittersweet flavor that it has, because in that duel he was expelled; and that of the Super Cup, in which he once again celebrated a 2-0 win against the same rival, coming on from the bench in the 77th minute.
There are six finals and six good memories prior to this moment in which, surely, the dreaded trident of Liverpool will once again complete with Mané and Salah (Firmino and Diogo Jota are absent due to injury). If you need it, it’s there. Look for him, the finals are his thing…
