After scoring a late equalizer for Liverpool against Luton, Colombian striker Luis Diaz made an emotional plea for his father to be released. Diaz's father is still missing after his parents were kidnapped in Colombia and the forward lifted his shirt to show a message of "freedom for papa" after heading in Harvey Elliott's cross. Shortly after the game, he released a statement calling for his release. The statement said: “Mane, my dad, hard-working man, family pillar, he's now kidnapped. I ask ELN [National Liberation Army] to release my father as soon as possible. I also ask the international associations to work on that in order to guarantee his freedom. Every second, every minute we're more worried. We've no words to describe our family's terrible feelings and it will be the same as long as he's not back at home. I beg you to release my father right now, respecting his integrity. I want to thank all Colombians and also the international community for your support.”
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Liverpool manager
Jurgen Klopp had this to say about how Diaz reacted after scoring the equalizer against Luton: It was a wonderful moment but it doesn't change the situation. The most important thing is that his father gets released. It is wonderful he wanted to be here. For us, a super important goal, and for him, very important and emotional, but that's it."
Tahith Chong put the hosts in front from
Issa Kabore's cross with 10 minutes of normal time remaining. Liverpool, however, dug deep to ensure that they grabbed a late equalizer to run away with a point. Klopp had this to say about the game: "Credit to Luton and how they defended and how they set up but it was mainly up to us. We had a lot of chances and should have had much more. It is a tricky task to stay fully concentrated. Looking at the game I think we didn't deserve more than a point. We could have won the game with the chances we had but now looking at it I think we deserved a point."
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