Why World Cup stage will see Diaz claim Messi’s crown of South America’s best player

The story of Group K at the World Cup shall be defined by how the use of an ageing star impacts the flourishing of younger team-mates. But enough about Cristiano Ronaldo and a Portugal team that is better without their biggest name.

This is also a swansong for James Rodriguez, the star of 2014 who continues to knit things together for Colombia despite a dearth of club action.

How he combines with Luis Diaz will not just shape how far a team still smarting from missing out four years ago can progress but become a significant factor in the former Liverpool winger elevating his status to South America’s best player.

Lionel Messi’s waning power, the absence of stardust around him in the Argentina squad with the arguable exception of Julian Alvarez, and the inconsistencies of an ageing Brazil team in which Vinicius Junior and Raphinha still carry question marks despite such breathtaking ability, has created an opening for Diaz to assume the mantle of his continent’s top man.

By all objective measurements he has reached a new level since joining Bayern Munich last summer. Forming part of the club game’s most prolific front three, he ended the campaign with 26 goals and 19 assists in all competitions - plus another seven goals in the gruelling Comnebol qualifiers, just one behind Messi.

At Anfield there were occasional grumblings about his need to be more prolific, which in hindsight looks rather silly even if the quality of an average Bundesliga opponent is lower than the Premier League.

Diaz was sixth overall for goals and assists combined across Europe’s big five leagues in the season just concluded, rising to third once penalties were stripped out, and he was sixth for assists per 90 minutes too. No other South American came close and we could continue listing categories in which he has excelled since arriving in Bavaria.

Yet the real joy of Diaz is that he is not a player moulded by data. At a point where so much of the club game feels and looks engineered, with teams across the continent thriving off the back of clever analysis and algorithims, Diaz is shining thanks to the freedom imbued upon him by Vincent Kompany for club and Nestor Lorenzo for country.

“I love those moments when I create chaos for the opposition,” Diaz said midway through the Bundesliga campaign, “because forwards and wingers live for those moments when the opposition is scared.” It was a succinct way to describe what makes him so good.

Harry Kane has certainly appreciated Diaz’s unpredictability as the focal point of Bayern’s attack, with Michael Olise as effective on the opposite flank. “He can get it in wide positions and cause trouble against defenders one v one,” the England captain said in February. “He can come inside and go down the line. He gets into dangerous areas. He gets into the six-yard box, he gets into those tap-in areas to get you those important goals.”

And assists. Eight of Diaz’s 19 were gratefully finished by Kane. “A fantastic player,” Europe’s top scorer added. “I'm really happy to be playing with him.” Any centre forward would.

In a yellow shirt Diaz’s role is even more free, though do not mistake that for a shortage of defensive work because he is a committed presser and always willing to track back, no sign of the luxury permitted to Messi or a handful of Brazil’s forwards.

During qualifying and recent friendlies he flitted between a central role alongside Luis Suarez, a late bloomer who has done a more than reasonable job of filling Viktor Gyokeres’ vacancy in the Sporting attack, and drifting out wide.

With Rodriguez operating behind, that unpredictability should create the havoc Diaz enjoys inflicting so much. There is perhaps no more scintillating fast break player in the game right now and Colombia have continuously made hay that way - a quarter of their 28 qualifying goals were from counterattacks.

They defeated both Argentina and Brazil in qualifying, the first time that has happened, and once a defence that was worryingly dissected by France in a March friendly can tighten up, Los Cafeteros may well go deep this summer with their star man climbing higher still on the ladder of superstardom.