Jorge Pereyra Diaz is a name missed by fans of Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT). The Argentine plundered in 50 goals through his time with the Southern Tigers and his quality has been sorely missed by JDT in 2017.
In an open session with the fans on Tuesday night, HRH Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim (TMJ) revealed the reason for Diaz to be moved on from the club. Diaz is currently playing for Club Leon in the Mexican league.
TMJ revealed that it was Mario Gomez's decision not to continue with Diaz, prior to the team's pre-season Thailand tour in January. That culminated in subsequent quarrel with the club over flight reimbursement which lead to Diaz's departure from the team.
However that wasn't Diaz's first brush with the management, having gone on a strop previously when the team was under the guidance of Bojan Hodak. TMJ went on to explained that at that time, Diaz claimed to be injured when in fact, he did not want to play for Hodak.
There's no denying that Diaz would have made this iteration of JDT better. No one doubts that had Diaz been available in the AFC Cup semi-final second leg last year against Bengaluru FC, that JDT might have gone through to their second final.
Yet, no player is ever bigger than the club. Not for Lionel Messi at Barcelona, not for Diaz at JDT. It wasn't the parting that both parties would have liked but sometimes that's the way things worked out.
Without him and Martin Lucero, JDT have spread the goals around across the team and that can only be a positive thing. It gives the team and players more responsibility and less dependency on the qualities of a few.
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