Luis Díaz has started the season not by lighting up Munich, but by testing its patience.
Inside Säbener Straße, according to Sport1, his early performances have caused “bewilderment”. Not because he’s invisible. Quite the opposite. He keeps getting into prime scoring positions. He just keeps wasting them.
Missed moments, rising frustration
The 0-0 against FC Schalke 04 set the tone. Bayern’s attack carved out enough to win two games, yet left without a goal. Díaz was far from the only culprit against Loris Karius, but his profligacy stood out again. The sense from the hierarchy: this is not what they signed up for.
Then came SV Elversberg away. A narrow 2-1 win, three points secured, but another chapter in Díaz’s growing catalogue of regrets.
At 1-1 in the 67th minute, Michael Olise slipped a superb ball into the box. Díaz had peeled into space, the kind of run that usually ends with the net rippling. First touch: slightly loose. Instead of resetting and striking cleanly, he improvised. A backheel attempt, with the goal gaping.
It went wrong. Badly.
Josip Stanišić, arriving behind him, had already thrown his arms up in celebration, convinced a straightforward finish was coming. TV cameras caught the transformation: joy to disbelief in a heartbeat. After the chance vanished, the Croatia international’s anger was unmistakable as he lashed out in frustration.
To Díaz’s right, Harry Kane had also been perfectly placed. A simple square pass and the Englishman would likely have been rolling the ball into an empty net. Kane made his displeasure clear in a brief, pointed exchange after the move broke down. Five minutes later, he showed the difference in ruthlessness, spinning and firing in the 2-1 winner himself.
Six big chances gone in three league games
The numbers now underline what everyone at Bayern can see. According to FotMob, Díaz has already missed six big chances in just three Bundesliga appearances this season. Six. For a winger of his status in a side of Bayern’s ambition, that figure bites.
His wastefulness has not been confined to the league. In the Champions League against Bodø/Glimt and in the DFB-Pokal against VfL Osnabrück, he again found himself in scoring positions that should have padded both his stats and Bayern’s scorelines. The ball never quite followed the script.
His only goal of the campaign so far came on the opening day, in the 5-1 win over VfB Stuttgart. Even then, it arrived late, after he had already passed up two more clear chances. The pattern is hard to ignore.
A familiar story, a familiar question
For Bayern, this is not entirely new territory with Díaz. In his debut season after arriving from Liverpool, he flirted with a reputation as a serial chance-misser. The movement was there, the chaos, the threat – but the finish often went missing at the crucial moment.
Then he flipped the narrative.
Díaz evolved into one of Europe’s most dangerous attackers, finishing that campaign with 26 goals and 23 assists. The same runs, the same positions, but now with an edge that made him lethal rather than merely lively. That version of Díaz is the one Bayern thought they had locked in.
So when the current drought is discussed internally, it comes with a sense of déjà vu. They have seen this movie before. They also know how it can end.
Eberl backs Díaz to turn it around
Sporting board member Max Eberl, speaking after the Elversberg game, struck a note of calm. No public dressing-down, no panic.
“Should I, as a former defender who never scored a goal, tell Lucho Díaz how he should score a goal better?” he said, referencing his own barren record – no goals in 104 top-flight and 111 second-division matches for Bochum, Fürth and Gladbach. “Lucho doesn’t have the momentum at the moment.”
Eberl made a point of broadening the lens. Bayern, he stressed, had squandered several chances, not just Díaz. The Colombian’s struggles are part of a wider issue in front of goal, not the sole cause.
“At some point his drought will end again too,” Eberl added.
That is the bet inside Bayern: that this is a storm to be ridden out, not a structural flaw. The runs are still sharp, the confidence to try something audacious – like that ill-fated backheel – has not disappeared. What is missing is the clean, ruthless contact that once turned half-chances into headlines.
For now, Díaz stands at a crossroads that top forwards know all too well. Keep missing, and the murmurs grow louder. Start scoring again, and this awkward stretch becomes a footnote.
In a team built to chase every trophy, how long can Bayern afford to wait for their left winger to flick the switch again?
