LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will let winger Luis Diaz decide for himself when he’s ready to play again, after his parents were kidnapped by a guerrilla group in Colombia.
Diaz’s father is still missing, while his mother was rescued within hours by police after the kidnapping last weekend in the small Colombian town of Barrancas. Colombia’s government said Thursday that the guerrilla group National Liberation Army, known as ELN, was responsible for the kidnapping.
Klopp said Diaz, a Colombia international, has trained with the team this week, but he will leave it up to the forward to decide whether he wants to be in the squad for Sunday’s trip to Luton.
“We must wait. If he feels right, he will be here and train with us,” Klopp said. “The session he had with us, you can see when he is with the boys he is fine, he is OK, but you could see he didn’t sleep a lot. … It’s all about him, if he makes himself available or not, and I will not force anything.”
Colombian special forces have been searching for Diaz’s father in a mountain range that straddles both Colombia and Venezuela and is covered by cloud forest. Police also offered a $48,000 reward for information leading to him being found.
Díaz was absent from Liverpool’s match against Nottingham Forest on Sunday. His teammates expressed their solidarity with the Colombian by holding up one of his jerseys on the pitch after scoring the team’s first goal in their 3-0 victory.
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