That Diaz Diamond, buried in an Argentina early Wednesday

What does one make of something intensely precious that is left lying buried deep in a heap? After watching a penalty shootout-espresso-shot Italy make past Spain some three hours before, an early, bleary-eyed Copa America semifinal between Argentina and Colombia was supposed to be more a test of spectator enurance than of aesthetic hope. But there it was, the lotus in the Wednesday early morning mud.

Colombia’s dominance, especially in the first half of the second half of the game, was writ large at the Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia. Luis Diaz, playing the midfield as if equipped with a minesweeper, was taking on Argentina quadrant by quadrant, ball run by ball run, even after a Lautero Martinez Messi-assisted goal had put Colombia behind in the 7^th minute.

In the 61^st minute, the eye, less bleary but still a bit blurred, followed the ball leaving its long trajectory after Juan Cuadrado took a free kick in the Colombian half, while simultaneously tracking the Diaz making his run down the left flank, ball tied to feet and saw ball and man connect. The physical form of Argentina defender Germán Alejo Pezzella quickly converged with Diaz et ball, sticking to him like a lumbering anti-shadow and then sheer-shoulder the smaller man in Colombian yellow down.


The next thing one registered – if taking note had a precise pleasure point – was Diaz and the ball at his feet scatter in opposite directions from the goal-line, well, almost. The man had fallen behind the line, the ball had trickled into the Argentina net from an insane angle that would have made Euclid sit up.

I remember a Sami Nasri goal against Tottenham Hotspurs in April 2011. But Nasri was fighting his own momentum, before trickling the ball 90 degrees across into the bottom left corner. For Diaz, there was not just momentum, but the mass of Pezzella. And yet he found that fast-closing sluice gates of the goal from a fast-disappearing angle.

With Argentina finally winning on penalties, penalty shots-stopping show-stopper Emiliano Martinez the hero of the day, and Colombia left to fight another Copa another day, this Diaz diamond lies buried in the heap of a Colombia defeat and an Albiceleste Wednesday.

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