Luis Diaz's Struggles Amid Bayern's Celebration

In a corner of the Allianz Arena dressing room, the music was loud and the mood louder. Bayern had just thrashed Union Berlin 7-0, and the list of reasons to celebrate seemed endless.

Harry Kane, the last player to leave just after midnight, walked out with a gingerbread heart iced with a bright “100” – a sweet marker of yet another milestone. Inside, Vincent Kompany had turned the dressing room into a small stage.

“The coach had a few of us give speeches in the dressing room,” Kane said, reeling off the highlights. Michael Olise’s first hat-trick for Bayern. Ismael Saibari’s first goal for the club. Kane’s 100th Bayern strike. Serge Gnabry’s return from injury. He added, laughing, that Olise’s speech had been the shortest of the lot.

The mood was light. The jokes came easily.

Luis Diaz didn’t join in.

He slipped out of the stadium without a word, without a smile, and without a goal. Again.

The odd man out on a perfect night

The contrast could hardly have been sharper. On one side, a group of attackers stacking up personal landmarks. On the other, Diaz – the one forward in this Bayern squad who currently seems to attract nothing but misfortune.

He did not look broken. Not sulking, not raging. Just quiet. Detached from the party that had every right to go on long into the night.

This was his fifth straight game for Bayern without a goal or assist. Since scoring the fifth in the opening-day 5-1 win over Stuttgart, the 29-year-old’s output has simply stopped. The numbers are stark, but the missed moments sting more.

Against Schalke, Osnabrück in the cup and Bodö/Glimt in the Champions League, he passed up a series of clear chances. Then came Elversberg: picked out perfectly in the box by Olise, Diaz seemed to have several tricks in his head and too little time in his feet. Instead of a simple finish, he produced only a tame backheel that infuriated Josip Stanisic.

Against Union Berlin, his most eye-catching action ended with the linesman’s flag. He finished what had been Bayern’s slickest move up to that point, only to see the goal ruled out for offside.

No goal. No assist. And with that, Diaz broke a promise he had made publicly before the game.

“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 still isn’t there. The wait goes on.

A break instead of a call-up

Now, Diaz will have to wait until 10 October for his next chance to put things right. The calendar hands him a pause he did not ask for, but clearly needs.

Before Bayern travel to Augsburg, the international break takes over. Colombia will play without him.

Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo, in agreement with Diaz, chose not to call him up. Bayern’s forward has been granted special leave. The idea: rest, reset, and recover after a brutal previous season.

The numbers from last year underline just how much he has poured into his game. Diaz played 51 times for Bayern, scoring 26 goals and providing 23 assists. On top of that, he featured in 16 matches for Colombia, adding seven goals and three assists.

Even at the World Cup, where he helped Colombia reach the last 16, his chance conversion nagged away at him. Since returning to Munich, that issue has only grown. Against Union, he barely got a sniff.

Sofascore’s data shows he has already missed six big chances in the Bundesliga this season. After just four league matchdays, his expected goals stood at 3.1 – but his actual tally remains stuck on one.

The comparison with his team-mates is unforgiving. Kane has three Bundesliga goals from an xG of 2.17. Olise, sparkling and ruthless, has four league goals from an xG of 2.65 and already sits on eight goals and three assists in all competitions. Saibari, who replaced Diaz in the 63rd minute against Union, has one goal and three assists from his first four Bundesliga games – in only 178 minutes.

While others turn chances into numbers, Diaz’s radar is off.

“Some would be glad if they had a dip like his”

Inside the club, nobody is reaching for the panic button.

“Some would be glad if they had a dip like his,” Bayern board member for sport Max Eberl said on Friday, choosing to cool the noise rather than stoke it.

“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 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,” Eberl added.

Curiously, Diaz himself seemed to sense that this sort of spell might come. In that same Sky/RTL interview, he even 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.”

He wanted a safety net. Instead, he now has to fight his way out of the dip with everyone watching.

The back-up that never came – and the one that might be enough

Bayern had planned to sign, or at least keep, a natural back-up for Diaz on the left. That was the public line. Yet as the transfer window closed, they loaned Arijon Ibrahimovic to Augsburg – a move that surprised the 20-year-old as much as anyone.

So, are Bayern short on the left? Eberl doesn’t see it that way.

“From where did Isi score his goal today?” he shot back when asked whether the club might revisit the idea of a Diaz back-up in winter.

The question answered itself. Saibari had cut in from the left side of the penalty area to score. He is not a classic winger – he lacks the raw pace – but his intelligence, vision and technique mean he can slot into almost any attacking role. Gnabry, too, can operate on that flank.

For now, Diaz’s starting spot is not under immediate threat. Kompany is likely to continue rotating his stars heavily in the coming weeks, especially with several midweek fixtures looming after the international break. Minutes will be shared, chances will come.

But Saibari has already shown he can change games from the bench. Olise is flying. Kane is Kane. The competition Diaz wished for is taking shape in a different form than he imagined.

A familiar reset – just earlier than planned

This is not the first time Bayern have taken Diaz out of the firing line mid-season.

Back in December 2025, he was suspended in the Champions League after a red card and simultaneously picked up his fifth yellow in the Bundesliga. With his forward forced to sit anyway, Kompany sent him away for 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 at the time.

The effect was striking. Diaz returned refreshed and delivered a strong second half of the season.

Now, almost a year earlier in the campaign, Bayern are trying the same formula: a pause, some distance, a chance to clear his head while his team-mates keep rolling.

The party at the Allianz showed how high the bar is in this Bayern attack. Olise, Saibari, Gnabry, Kane – all with their stories to tell, all with goals to point to. Diaz, for now, has only questions.

In October, when the music dies down and the season hardens, the answer will be his alone to give.