IN THE early hours of Friday morning, just 36 hours before his club were due to return to domestic league action in the English Championship, Ben Brereton Diaz was almost hidden beneath the celebrations in Santiago that greeted his third international goal.

The Blackburn Rovers forward had just scored the final goal in Chile’s 3-0 win against Venezuela that put them back in the mix for qualification for the 2022 World Cup.

Big Ben, as this nickname given to him in Chile suggests, wasn’t quite engulfed by the revelry that greeted his latest strike, but he was embraced by it, as he has been by Chilean fans and teammates since switching his international allegiance from England to Chile and joining them on this international football journey.