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"I will tell you an incredible story, one that even I find hard to believe. What has happened to me is so surreal that it resembles a story taken out of a dream." So begins the trailer for the documentary series 'Breretour', which tells the tale of Ben Brereton Diaz's adventure through Chile, the country he knew little about until just three years ago, when he was catapulted to fame during the last Copa America.
In a matter of weeks, the striker, who grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, went from playing for mid-table Blackburn Rovers at Rotherham in the English Championship to coming off the bench for Chile against Argentina in the Olympic Stadium in Brazil, facing Lionel Messi. In his next game, he made his first start for Chile against Bolivia and scored the only goal. Overnight he became a national sensation.
Chile eventually exited the tournament to Brazil in the quarter-finals, but by then Brereton Diaz was already a hero. He became the face of Pepsi in Chile, featured in a healthcare campaign and wherever he went he attracted attention befitting a Hollywood star.
And last year the Villarreal striker, who has just completed an impressive half-season on loan with Sheffield United in the Premier League, truly became a film star, when adidas and HBO documented a week-long journey through his adopted homeland.
Chilean TV reporter Manuel de Tezanos was his guide while his mother Andrea, whose family emigrated from Chile to Stoke to work in the pottery industry, joined him halfway through. Highlights include struggling with heights up the Entel Tower in the capital of Santiago, swimming in a lagoon and exploring the world famous Atacama desert.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life, it was crazy," Brereton Diaz tells GOAL. "Going to the desert, big barbecues, fishing, being with friends and family. My mum is from there, she'd not been around Chile for a few years so she loved to come round with me and to see all this stuff as well, it was lovely to share that moment with her.
"I had only been to Chile once when I was one year old, the next time I went was after the Copa America. I've been there many times playing football, but you don't see much of Chile. You only see the hotel, you train and you play. It was an amazing trip for me to see some of the beautiful places in Chile, do some of the traditional stuff."