Jürgen Klopp Reflects on Luis Dīaz’s First Appearance Since October

10 minutes ain’t nothing. Not after missing the majority of this season. When Jürgen Klopp introduced Luis Díaz back onto the pitch to serve as the human victory lap in their 6-1 victory over Leeds United, a collective sigh of relief could be heard by Liverpool fans around the globe.

Díaz, who joined Liverpool from Porto in January 2022, made an instant impact on the pitch. The way he slotted effortlessly into the front three made him a fan favorite instantly. His knee injury against Arsenal back in October, in retrospect, feels like the canary in the coal mine indicated the disappointing season Liverpool were about to face.

If you want to make a compelling argument in favor of Creationism to me, you should start with the knees. If humans really have been evolving over millions of years, then why do we still have knees held in place by dental floss? Surely the cavemen needed them to be sturdier to hunt or whatever.

By anyway, Díaz injured his knee, and knees are finicky. He’d missed the next six months before his 10 minutes of playing time on Monday.

Klopp was as happy as the rest of us to see the Colombian international back on the pitch, and talked about after the match ended.

“It was super important that Luis is back. He is lacking rhythm which is normal, a bit of sharpness, that’s normal as well,” he said.

“He is in training sessions. You can’t get the final degree of sharpness so we now just try to help him by getting him step by step back in the team. Give him minutes. It’s nice to see him play to be honest. We missed him for so long. It was nice to see him involved again.”

Díaz joins Diogo Jota in returning to assist in Liverpool’s attack in the last few matches of the season. The Reds will need every player to show up and the universe to bestow them some luck in order to retain a spot in the top four.