On the brink of a professional career, Darwin Núñez’s dreams seemed to be quashed right as he was about to begin.

Six years ago, Núñez was just a kid playing in the academy of Club Atlético Peñarol — a club playing in Uruguay’s top flight — when he was greeted with devastating news. The young forward had suffered an ACL injury on his knee which would require surgery, and he would be ruled out for many months.

At 17 years of age, for a kid who had come from a humble family just like Luis Díaz, this was devastating news. Núñez’s brother had given up everything, including his own career, in order to sustain his younger sibling’s dream, and in that moment it had seemed to crumble into oblivion.

Thankfully, he bounced back to make his first team bow, but he would be ruled out again with the same injury for another six months due to complications.

“At times I wanted to stop playing, but my family and my teammates were always there and they helped me to move forward to continue. I proposed that to myself and today I am stronger than ever,” he told Uruguayan publication Futbol.

Through perseverance, Núñez didn’t give up and upon his return his extra mental fortitude helped him to establish himself as a regular in the first team.

The rest would be history, with Núñez catching the scouts’ attention for Uruguay at the U20 World Cup merely two years later. There he would be snapped up by UD Almería, who helped him achieve his boyhood dreams before a big money move to Benfica.

It was there that his injury problems resurfaced on the same knee. Last year, during the summer of 2021, he was was forced to have another surgery. It saw him miss the entirety of pre-season and Benfica’s first seven games.