IBARGUE - On the early Sunday morning everything was still normal. Henry Diaz was ready to leave from the Colombian city Ibargue to the World championship in Bordeaux, France. But how big was the panic a few hours later. The Colombian player had just arrived at the bus station to leave for Bogota to take the flight to Europe. He stepped out of the cab, opened his suitcase to take his coat and was approached by a woman. She asked him the way to a nearby town, Diaz showed her the route and continued walking towards the bus station.
Minutes later, in the bus, Diaz noticed that he had lost his bag with documents (passport, invitation for the World championship and travel documents). When he stepped from the bus, he was in desperation, spoke to the authorities of the bus company, but nobody could help. Diaz immediately feared the worst thing and realized that his flight was in danger.
The hour-long telephone calls with authorities, friends, people from his hometown couldn't help him: at seven o'clock in the evening, the time when his flight was to depart, Diaz called Farouk Barki and Marco Zanetti in France and told them that he couldn't leave and had to cancell. His flight was already gone when the Colombian received a call that the documents were found in Buenaventura, 300 kilometers from the place where he was.
The grief over a lost opportunity was great. Diaz realized how beautiful it would have been to play at the World championship in Europe in the group stage against Dani Sánchez and Christian Rudolph and could not sleep all night. He was convinced that he had done everything possible to defend the tricolour of his country.
The Frenchman Pierre Soumagne was designated on Monday as the substitute for Diaz at the World championship.