#3 | Rúben Dias - 2020/21 Performances

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Best thing about him is that he doesn't just do his job brilliantly, he improves everyone around him. He covers for his partners and encourages them and gets the best out of them. That has always been my criticism of Van Dijk, he hangs his partners out to dry and doesn't cover them, instead just does his job and lets his partners get into trouble. A proper CB is part of a pair and whoever Dias plays with thrives alongside him
 
The Fat el Hombre said:
I think along with foden he's a player who you wonder what level he can get to and what he will achieve in the game. The chips were down on Wednesday and he came up trumps again. World class. 23 years old. Still pinch myself
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Moreover - at 23 - he leads our backline. Supremely talented footballer - and a natural leader.
 
I saw Dias earlier, walking Ancoats way with a City carrier bag swung over his shoulder. Cool as fuck.
 
I said back when the video of the Benfica squad crying In the dressing room and the manager hugging Dias saying goodbye was an indication of the player we were getting. It just looked like they were letting a guy go who they knew was a world beater and their golden boy. He is everything Vinny was. A true leader. But he has a side Vinny didn't, he can be a nasty bastard when need be. He is a cross between Otamendi and Vinny. Phenominal defender and leader and imo a future captain.
 
Bear with me on this one, as I'm about to get personal and nostalgic. I swear I haven't been on the booze.

When I lost my mum, and being at the age when a lad starts to look back over his life, I've spent the last couple of years pouring over memories of my younger years.


For most of my adult life, I've generally thought that I had relatively few memories from my life before around seven years old. But it turns out, that's not true.

I've got my story and timeline together in my head, and the only suprising thing is, how complete it is. I'm able to put names and faces together all the way back to my first day at school.

What suprised me was the level of detail and the vividness of memories I had forgotten about decades ago... moments I'd possibly never even bought back to mind before.

Sometimes, as I lay in bed, I find the vivid sensations of the memories almost worrying. I can smell the Greenhouse with Simon and I played in. Taste food I ate decades ago (my stomach groans in sympathetic hunger). There are times when I feel like I've just come home from 2nd year, and tommorow I will be back amongst the bustle of bodies and bags and the throng of voices in the Tech labs before first bell.

Family, friends, places, people, sights, sounds. Catchphrases and mannerisms, the feel of moments I never expected to get back. I mean, dammit, I can hardly remember where I've put my keys, or if I've eaten. But it really meant something, to have those memories of people. So many great people, people I would be overjoyed to know these days. Great memories. I'm very lucky.

There's only one that eludes me. One person I cannot place, for the life of me: the kid who was very probably my first real friend.

This was before I started school. We'd visit his lovely big house and play. I think it was so big part of it was used for something else.

All I know is what a great time it was, all I remember is how enthusiastic I was about him. His name was Ruben.

That's it. Everyone else in my life, if I needed to, I could give you last names, last known locations, where they lived, how I knew them, how it came to be. I could find nearly all of them. But not Ruben. Because I just was too young to know his last name, or to understand or remember where he lived in relation to other places.

And now my mum and dad are gone, so is any clue as to Ruben's identity, and how he came into my family's circle. He is destined to remain a mystery at the centre of the first chapter of my story, 'My first friend'. He's possibly the only person I can bring to mind for whom I don't have a memory of a particular mannerism, or a look, or the feel of a particular moment in their company pop into my head straight away.

I can't even remember what he looked like, nor sounded, not a mannerism or anything about his personality.

All I remember is, Ruben was kind and good and clever, and I know this, because I liked him a lot, in that childlike simple way, that only comes from friendships the way they were back then.

And.. that's sort of how I feel about Ruben Diaz. I don't think I've heard him speak. I wouldn't know how to describe him as a defender. Sometimes he's covering, sometimes he's ball winning. Good on the ball? Err, presumably, but I couldn't say I've noticed.

I just know he plays for us. And when he does, I like it.

Because Ruben Diaz is kind, and good, and brave. And I know that, because we like him, a lot.
 
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