He went 1,045 days without scoring a single goal: the ironic Ronaldo replacement that couldn’t score

There are dry spells, and then there’s Mariano Díaz—a striker who once wore the weight of Real Madrid’s legend No. 7 jersey, only to vanish into a silence so deep, it spanned almost three calendar years. From May 15, 2022, until a low-profile international friendly in March 2025, Mariano didn’t muster even a single goal in professional club football.

 

Indeed, you heard correctly: 1,045 days without executing the single task for which a striker is being extremely well paid—to score.

 

Once a Storm, Then a Shadow

 

Flash back to when he was playing for Olympique Lyonnais in 2017. Mariano was dynamite—he netted 21 goals in just 45 games. He looked a threat in the box and was compared to the legends. That was enough to convince Real Madrid to bring him back for over €20 million.

 

And with it, the jersey. The No. 7. That jersey was not merely a number—it was a heritage. Cristiano Ronaldo had played in it. Raúl had worn it. It was not a jersey you ventured into casually.

 

But as soon as he laced it up, it felt like the burden of history settled upon him.

 

He disappeared. Brought in, taken out. Games passed by. Then months. And then years. The goals completely dried up. Fans even forgot he was in the squad list. At Sevilla, where he tried to restart his career, he played 13 times. His track record? Zero. Zilch.

 

The Calendar Keeps Turning

 

A year passed by. Then two. Coaches looked elsewhere. Teammates left. The world moved by.

 

Mariano didn’t.

 

He became the embodiment of potential lost—his career a time capsule of what could have been. From nights in La Liga under the lights of the Bernabéu to warming Sevilla’s bench in deafening silence, he became football’s ghost.

 

An Unexpected Flicker

 

And then March 2025.

 

A friendly game between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. A small blip on the football radar. No cameras. No publicity. Just 22 men on a pitch and the hope that someone might leave their mark.

 

And then, suddenly—after all these years—Mariano did.

 

He scored.

 

Not for a large club. Not in a final. Not in La Liga, or the Champions League, or anywhere that mattered on paper. But after 1,045 soul-draining days, he finally saw the net ripple again. To him, that was everything.

 

The Tale of a Lost Striker

 

What happened to Mariano Díaz is more than a story of form or condition. It’s of a player who lost his way during the story. Having been given the keys to the kingdom, he locked himself out. Pressure, poor management, or sheer bad luck might have had something to do with it, but the result was the same: one of the longest and most mystifying disappearances of modern football.

 

But when that opportunity came—quietly and unannounced—it carried the burden of almost three years.

 

• And though his stint in premier football may be finished, that one goal demonstrated something:

 

Ghosts can still score again.