Luis Díaz, ready for the Merseyside Derby: which Colombians have played it and why it is so important

Luis Diaz is having a great time with Liverpool. Since his arrival in January, he has demonstrated his enormous potential on the field and is now one of the starting players in Jürgen Klopp's team. The next match is key for 'The Reds' to stay in the fight for the Premier League lead: they will face Frank Lampard's Everton.

The two clubs arrive in different conditions in the local championship. Liverpool is one of the biggest players of the season, second in the Premier League standings, four points behind Manchester City (which has one more game after beating Watford), and with a win it could be just one point behind Pep's team again. In addition, he is a Champions League semi-finalist, FA Cup finalist and Carabao Cup champion.

Everton, for its part, is not going through the best time. He is in box 17 of the standings with 29 points, followed by Burnley who is in the relegation zone. In 33 matches he has only been able to consolidate eight wins and five draws, while he has lost 18 times. Lampard knows that he has no room for error and for this match he already has Colombian defender Yerry Mina, who played the 90 minutes in the draw against Leicester.

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Luis Díaz will play his first Merseyside Derby, a historic match in the history of English football, as it is the longest running game since 1962 and in which the two most important clubs in the city of Liverpool face each other. It all started with the founding of the 'Toffees' in 1878, the then president of the team, John Houlding, a successful brewer, acquired land in Anfield so that the club could play its matches and have more capacity. In 1888 the Premier League was inaugurated and in the 1890-91 season Everton was champion. It is for this reason that the team president decided to raise the price to the other team owners for using these spaces.

Over time, Houlding became mayor of the city and, as Everton gained fans, he continued to increase Anfield's rental prices, something that ended up bothering the other club owners who decided to leave this place to move to a nearby, cheaper place, Goodison Park. Given this, the former president of the 'blues' decided to create his own team and in 1892 he founded Liverpool Football Club.

The first match recorded between these two clubs was on October 13, 1894, at Goodison Park, and ended 3-0 in favor of Everton. Over the years, the derby began to have enormous social importance and a 'friendly' rivalry developed between the fans of the two clubs, which is why they also call it 'The Friendly Derby'. So far, 290 matches have been played between these two teams, with 122 wins for the 'Reds', 85 draws and 83 wins for the 'Toffees'. The last duel took place on December 1, 2021 with a rout for those led by Klopp who won by 1-4.

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Only two Colombian players have been present in this historic match. Yerry Mina and James Rodriguez, with Everton. The Colombian defender arrived at Goodison Park in August 2018 and has since played four times, three times for the Premier League and one for the FA Cup. The first match was on December 2, 2018 in Anfield, and the match ended 1-0 in favor of Los Reds.

James Rodriguez, who spent only one season in Everton, played twice in the Meseyside Derby. The first was on October 17, 2020 at Goodison Park and it was reported with an assist. The game ended 2-2. The other was February 20, 2021, in a historic victory for Everton by 0-2 at Anfield and in which the '10′ of the Colombia team returned to attend.

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