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Three hundred and four days is a long time for a footballer to go without playing in a game. And 1,135 days must feel like a lifetime for a striker to go without scoring. Mariano Diaz ended both of those personal droughts within the first 20 minutes of a friendly between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico this week.
Mariano made 84 appearances for Madrid over two spells between 2016 and 2023, scoring 12 times. He then joined fellow La Liga side Sevilla in 2023 but left them last summer and has been without a club since. He had scored his last official goal on February 15, 2022, for Madrid against Cadiz in La Liga, and his most recent appearance in any recognised competition was in a Spanish top-flight match for Sevilla against Barcelona on April 26 last year.
The 31-year-old has committed to the Dominican Republic national team in time for their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup in Canada and the United States, with 16 sides from North and Central America and the Caribbean competing.
Mariano played 88 minutes in the Dominican Republic’s 2-0 win against Puerto Rico on Tuesday, at Cibao Stadium in the Dominican city of Santiago. His goal came from a long ball over the top, which he received on his chest while running in behind the Puerto Rican defence.
It was a high-quality take and finish from a similar angle to his stoppage-time goal seconds after coming off the bench against Barcelona in March 2020 — his best moment in a Madrid shirt — and showed why the Dominican Republic are so excited to have him, despite his lack of club football over the past 10 months.
The goal was of special importance to the Dominican Republic’s Argentinian manager Marcelo Neveleff, who pushed for Mariano’s inclusion.
The two teams had met just four days earlier in Puerto Rico and drew 2-2 without the Dominican Republic’s two most high-profile players, Mariano and Leeds United left-back Junior Firpo, who both scored in the later win in Santiago. Puerto Rico are 157th in FIFA’s world rankings (the Dominican Republic are 141st), so there will be tougher tests ahead for Mariano.
It was his first appearance for the Dominican Republic — where his mother is from — since his international debut in 2013, when he featured in a friendly against Haiti.
In a 2018 interview with Spanish news agency EFE, as reported by Marca, he called playing for Spain “a dream I have since I’ve been little” and added: “They (the Dominican Republic) have tried to get me to go (there), but I have the desire and the intention of playing for Spain.”
Neveleff, who was appointed in January 2023, says: “When I got here two years ago, we went over the players of Dominican heritage that played in Europe, and he was on the top of the list. We met a year ago, and then he told me that he was interested but not at the moment, when he was in Seville. But then we started talking again and it was a big-time opportunity for us as a national team to have a player of his calibre.
He believed that we were going to be able to help him relaunch his career. And that’s why it was a win-win situation for all of us.”
Players without a club very rarely represent their countries.
Goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa put in stellar performances for Mexico at the 2014 World Cup while he was a free agent after leaving France’s Ajaccio to earn a move to Spanish side Malaga and Hal Robson-Kanu helped Wales to the 2016 European Championship semi-finals as a free agent after his deal at Reading expired — his decisive second in the 3-1 quarter-final win against Belgium nominated for FIFA’s Puskas award for the best goal that calendar year — and was then signed by West Bromwich Albion.
But none were without a club for as long as Mariano, who endured a difficult time at Madrid.
He joined their youth system in 2011-12 from Catalan side Badalona and rose to become third-choice striker behind Karim Benzema and Alvaro Morata in 2016-17. He made the most of his limited minutes to earn an €8million ($8.7m; £6.7m at current exchange rates) move to France’s Lyon in summer 2017 and scored 21 goals in 48 games for them across all competitions the following season before Madrid then exercised a right of first refusal to bring him back in 2018.
His final five years at Madrid were characterised by a lack of playing time and it probably did not help that he took on the iconic No 7 shirt worn by Cristiano Ronaldo when he left for Juventus in the summer of 2018. Mariano finally left through the back door in 2023 and signed as a free agent with Sevilla — but failed to score in 13 appearances and has been without a club since leaving last summer after his one-year contract expired.
Dominican Republic manager Neveleff describes him as a “tough kid” who is “very strong mentally”.
These guys are high-level athletes. If they have the idea to come back, they cannot relax, especially (when it comes to) physical training. What is most challenging (for a player) is (going without) the competition. When you play in La Liga, the Premier League or the Championship, whichever, some of the stuff that you were resolving on the field in a split second, it might take you a bit longer to do it and when you take longer, you are already late for the action.
He missed a couple of chances (in the Puerto Rico game). I told him if he had been in top shape and form he would not have missed. He missed a one-on-one with the goalkeeper before he scored the goal, but he knows.
But the signs were mostly positive on Mariano’s return. He trained well before the game and played those 88 minutes to a decent level before being replaced.
The Dominican Republic’s goalkeeper Xavier Valdez, of MLS club Nashville FC, agrees on Mariano’s quality.
The top two in each of the six groups (12 teams overall) progress to the third round, where they will be split into three groups of four. The three third-round group winners will qualify directly for next year’s World Cup, with the two best-ranked runners-up entering inter-confederation play-offs also involving teams from Asia, Africa, South America and Oceania.
Neveleff says Mariano is hoping to find himself a club before the Dominican Republic’s next matches in early June, when they visit Guatemala and host Dominica, a fellow Caribbean island nation, in those last two second-round World Cup qualifiers before the Gold Cup starts later that month.
The Dominican Republic have made important strides in football in recent years.
The men’s side also appeared at the 2024 Olympics in France, where they were knocked out at the group stage, drawing with Egypt (0-0) and Uzbekistan (1-1) and losing 3-1 to eventual gold medallists Spain. Mariano was listed in their preliminary squad but ultimately got left out, with competing countries only allowed three players over 23 years old in their selected 18.
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