Reaction'We are with him' - Alisson Becker pays tribute to Luis Diaz
Alisson Becker paid tribute to Luis Diaz after the Liverpool forward returned to the pitch and scored a stoppage-time equaliser at Luton Town.
As Diaz continues to deal with an ongoing family situation in his home country, he was part of the Reds squad for Sunday’s Premier League encounter.
Having been sent on by Jürgen Klopp, the Colombian then delivered a 95th-minute goal to level the earlier effort for the hosts from Tahith Chong.
Speaking to Sky Sports post-match, goalkeeper Alisson hailed his teammate’s strength of character.
“It says a lot about his character, about his inner strength,” Alisson said of Diaz. “Not many people [can] imagine what he is going [through] now, even as we are close to him, of course we are supporting him.
“We feel his pain but for him it’s a different level. Football sometimes in dark moments can bring joy to people, can bring joy to somebody who is struggling. And I think football is bringing a slice of joy to Lucho at this time.
“We are together with him for whatever he needs, to take his time. He came, trained, came to the game, scored a fantastic goal for us that was really important. We are with him 100 per cent.”
The No.1 continued: “Football always surprises, in a good way sometimes. It happened with me when I was going through a really difficult moment and happened today and happened other times for other people.
“When you are on the pitch you are focused on doing the job, I think he was focused on doing this, trying to help the team to get the points. And he did that for us.”
The draw at Kenilworth Road brought an end to Liverpool’s winning run, which stood at four in a row since the October international break.
Assessing how the game played out, Alisson also told Liverpoolfc.com: “It was really difficult. A really strong opponent we found here tonight. It was what we were expecting from the pictures we saw of them before the match.
“They showed it on the pitch, they played exactly how we saw it, with a lot of aggressiveness defensively, trying to go for counters – they succeeded on one occasion.
“I think we didn’t play a bad game, we played a game [where] we could score more, that we could have won. We didn’t use the situations we created, so that’s why we are going away with only one point.”