Luis Diaz's Struggles at Bayern: A Look at the Current Situation

In the Bayern dressing room, the stories almost told themselves.

A 7-0 win over Union Berlin. Laughter bouncing off the tiles. A gingerbread heart in Harry Kane’s hand, iced with a bright red “100” to mark yet another personal milestone. Michael Olise celebrating his first hat-trick for the club. Ismael Saibari grinning after his first Bayern goal. Serge Gnabry back in the squad and back on the pitch.

“The coach had a few of us give speeches in the dressing room,” Kane said just after midnight, the last player to leave the Allianz Arena. He rattled off the list of feel-good moments, then added with a smile that Olise’s speech had been the shortest of the lot.

No surprise there. Not everyone felt like talking.

While one corner of the room buzzed with self-congratulation, Luis Diaz slipped away in silence. No quotes, no gestures, no public frustration. Just a quiet exit into the Munich night from the man who suddenly looks like the odd one out in Bayern’s glittering attack.

The striker out of sync

The contrast could hardly be sharper. Bayern’s forwards are filling highlight reels; Diaz is filling up the “nearly” column.

His last competitive goal for Bayern? The 5-1 strike on the opening Bundesliga weekend against Stuttgart. Since then, five matches, no goals, no assists, and a growing catalogue of missed opportunities. Against Schalke, Osnabrück in the cup and Bodö/Glimt in the Champions League, he squandered clear chances that last season he would have buried.

In Elversberg, the frustration boiled over – not from Diaz, but from a team-mate. Picked out perfectly in the box by Michael Olise, Diaz seemed to have a whole highlight package in his head. Instead of a straightforward finish, he tried to improvise, ending with a tame backheel that infuriated Josip Stanisic.

Against Union, his most convincing moment ended with the assistant’s flag. He finished off Bayern’s best move of the night, only to see the goal ruled out for offside. Symbolic of his current run: the ball in the net, the numbers still unchanged.

Before the game, Diaz had tried to sound defiant in an interview with Sky/RTL. “I think that goal will come in the next game,” he said. “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.”

Ninety minutes later, the promise lay broken. The final touch is still missing.

Numbers that tell a different story

The strange part: Diaz is not playing like a man hiding from the ball. He still gets into the right spaces. Sofascore’s data has him down for six big chances missed in the Bundesliga already, with an expected goals figure of 3.1 after the first four matchdays. The positions are there. The end product is not.

Set that against his team-mates and the contrast bites. Harry Kane has three league goals from an xG of 2.17. Michael Olise, currently operating at a different temperature entirely, has four Bundesliga goals from an xG of 2.65 and eight goals plus three assists across all competitions. Saibari, who replaced Diaz in the 63rd minute against Union, has one goal and three assists in the league from just 178 minutes.

The Colombian, who carried Bayern’s attack for long stretches last season, suddenly looks like the one chasing the standard rather than setting it.

A body of work that demanded a break

Bayern and Colombia have not forgotten what came before this dip. Last season, Diaz played 51 times for Bayern, with 26 goals and 23 assists. On top of that came 16 games for Colombia – seven goals, three assists – and a World Cup run to the last 16.

Even there, though, a pattern was emerging. Diaz’s chance conversion faltered in Qatar and the issue followed him back to Munich. In the first weeks of this season, the problem intensified. Against Union, he barely saw a clear opening at all.

So now, a pause.

Diaz will not play again for Bayern until 10 October, away to Augsburg. Between now and then, the calendar belongs to the national teams. For him, it will mean something different: rest. Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo, in agreement with the player, has left him out of the squad so he can recover after that exhausting year.

“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 temperature around the discussion. He stressed the logic behind the decision: “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.”

Eberl described the plan clearly. 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.”

The back-up that never arrived – and the ones already here

What makes this slump feel less like a shock is that Diaz himself almost predicted the need for a safety net. In that same Sky/RTL interview, he admitted he would have welcomed a genuine back-up in his position.

“Of course I always want to play,” he said. “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.”

Bayern had originally planned exactly that – to enter the season with another option on the left. Instead, shortly before the transfer window closed, they sent Arijon Ibrahimovic on loan to Augsburg, a move that surprised the 20-year-old and left Diaz as the only natural first-choice in that role.

So is a winter signing back on the table? When asked whether the club might revisit the idea of a left-sided back-up in January, Eberl responded with a question of his own: “From where did Isi score his goal today?”

It was rhetorical. Saibari’s first Bayern goal came from the left side of the penalty area. The Moroccan is not a classic winger – he lacks the raw pace – but his intelligence, vision and technique allow him to slot into almost any attacking position. Gnabry, too, can operate on the left if required.

For now, Diaz’s place is not under immediate threat. Vincent Kompany has been rotating heavily and will continue to do so, especially once the international break ends and the schedule tightens with midweek fixtures. Game time will be shared. Opportunities will come.

A familiar reset button

This is not the first time Bayern have sent Diaz away to clear his head.

In December 2025, suspended in the Champions League after a red card and simultaneously ruled out of the Bundesliga through a fifth yellow, Kompany took the unusual step of ordering 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 back then.

The move worked. Diaz returned from that mini-holiday re-energised and produced an outstanding second half of the season.

Now, the club is reaching for the same switch again, only much earlier in the campaign. The numbers say he is due a goal. The eyes say his confidence needs one. The calendar says he finally has time to breathe.

When he comes back from this latest pause, Bayern will be in the thick of three competitions, the margins tighter, the stakes higher.

The question is simple: will the old Luis Diaz walk back through the door?