Luis Diaz: The Quiet Striker Amid Bayern's Celebration

The music was still thumping in Bayern’s dressing room when Harry Kane finally emerged, gingerbread heart in hand and a grin to match the 7-0 scoreline. The icing read “100” – a sweet marker of his latest milestone. Inside, the speeches had flowed almost as freely as the goals.

“The coach had a few of us give speeches in the dressing room,” Kane said shortly after midnight, listing the reasons to smile. Michael Olise with his first hat-trick for the club. Ismael Saibari’s first Bayern goal. Kane’s own 100th strike. Serge Gnabry back after injury. Then a chuckle: Olise’s speech, Kane revealed, had been the shortest of the lot.

Plenty of joy. Plenty of noise.

And one very quiet man.

The odd one out in a night of plenty

Luis Diaz slipped out of the Allianz Arena without a word. No gestures, no complaints, no headlines. Just a striker walking through the tunnel while everyone else basked in the glow.

The contrast could hardly be starker. On one side, a forward line feasting on chances and records. On the other, Diaz – the one Bayern attacker who currently seems to chase misfortune rather than goals. The sad figure in the middle of a party.

His last competitive goal for Bayern? The fifth in the 5-1 win over Stuttgart on the opening Bundesliga weekend. Since then, five games. No goals. No assists. And a growing collection of missed opportunities.

Against Schalke, Osnabrück in the cup and Bodø/Glimt in the Champions League, he passed up several clear-cut chances. In Elversberg, he drew open frustration from Josip Stanisic after Olise found him perfectly in the box and Diaz chose improvisation over instinct – juggling ideas in his head before producing only a tame backheel.

Against Union, his most dangerous moment ended with the assistant’s flag. He finished Bayern’s best move of the night up to that point, but the goal was chalked off for offside. Another almost. Another empty line on the scoresheet.

All of this came just days after he had promised a breakthrough on live television.

“I think that goal will come in the next game,” he told Sky/RTL. “You also have to stay calm, mentally, so it does not weigh on you. The thing is to keep working on it, to improve. I know it is only the finishing. Only the final touch is missing – and then it will be fine.”

The finishing is still missing.

Numbers that don’t match the talent

The data underlines the story. According to Sofascore, Diaz has already missed six big chances in the Bundesliga alone. After the first four league games, his expected goals stood at 3.1 – enough to suggest he should already be off and running.

Others in Bayern’s attack are turning their xG into cold, hard numbers. Kane has three league goals from an xG of 2.17. Olise, outstanding again in the rout of Union, has four from 2.65. Across all competitions, Olise already sits on eight goals and three assists. Saibari, who replaced Diaz in the 63rd minute against Union, has one goal and three assists from just 178 Bundesliga minutes across four matches.

Diaz, by contrast, has the workload without the reward. Last season he played 51 times for Bayern, delivering an extraordinary 26 goals and 23 assists. Add another 16 appearances for Colombia – seven goals, three assists – and the picture is clear: he has been running at full throttle for a long time.

Even at the World Cup, where he helped Colombia reach the last 16, his chance conversion wobbled. Back in Munich, that doubt in front of goal has only grown.

A break instead of a backlash

Now comes a pause. Diaz will not get his next chance until 10 October, when Bayern travel to Augsburg. The international window stands in the way – and this time, he will not be part of it.

Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo, in agreement with Diaz, has left him out. Bayern’s forward has been granted special leave to rest and reset after his relentless year.

“Some would be glad if they had a dip like his,” Bayern’s board member for sport Max Eberl said on Friday, keen to cool any brewing debate. For Eberl, the decision is simple.

“In South America, the international matches are not absolutely essential now and it is simply good for the player at the moment. He has simply had a great many games. So in that respect it is nice.”

Diaz, Eberl explained, will “go on a bit of holiday first and then get going again. He will have his programme. There is no need to worry that he will not come back fit.”

Curiously, Diaz himself seemed to anticipate the risk of a slump before the season even began. In that same Sky/RTL interview, he admitted he would have welcomed more competition in his position.

“Of course I always want to play. But if there is someone there who can help in my position: welcome. It helps a lot when things are not going well. Then your team-mate is there to help you – and that way you alternate. That is very important. I would have liked it. But fine, it did not happen. We are good as we are too.”

The back-up that never came – or did it?

Bayern had, in fact, planned to bring in exactly that kind of back-up on the left. Then, just before the transfer window closed, they loaned Arijon Ibrahimovic to Augsburg – a move that surprised the 20-year-old as much as anyone.

So is Diaz really alone in his role? Eberl pushed back on that idea with a pointed reply when asked on Friday whether Bayern might reconsider a winter signing for the left wing, the one attacking position not obviously doubled up.

“From where did Isi score his goal today?” he shot back.

The answer, of course: from the left side of the penalty area. Saibari is not a classic winger – he lacks the outright pace – but his vision, intelligence and technique allow him to float into almost any attacking role. Gnabry, too, can operate on the left.

For now, Diaz’s place is not under acute threat. Vincent Kompany is expected to keep rotating heavily, spreading minutes among his stars. After the international break, the schedule tightens again with several midweek fixtures in quick succession. Chances will come.

The question is what Diaz will do with them.

A familiar reset button

This is not the first time Bayern have sent Diaz away mid-season to clear his head. In December 2025, suspended in the Champions League after a red card and simultaneously banned in the Bundesliga due to his fifth yellow, Kompany opted for a reset.

He sent his forward on a short break.

“I think it is simply sensible now that he is away for a few days and then comes back mentally and physically at one hundred per cent,” the coach said back then.

It worked. Diaz returned refreshed and tore through the second half of the campaign.

Now, that trick is being tried again – only much earlier, and in very different circumstances. The team is flying. The goals are flowing. The speeches in the dressing room tell of milestones and comebacks.

Somewhere in that noise, Bayern are betting that a few quiet days for Luis Diaz will bring back the ruthless finisher they know.

If it does, this awkward September lull will be forgotten fast. If it doesn’t, how long can a club of Bayern’s ambitions afford to wait for a striker who used to never miss?