So… Listen to this… People always say that “all publicity is good publicity”. . .
And I mean… when it comes to football, that was true… just 30 years ago… Back when Maradona kept making the newspaper covers with every headline sounding crazier than the one before it… It was kind of working for him… To many fans his rockstar, raging bull persona only helped as further proof that he was simply greater than life itself… But nowadays that isn’t the case… When Luis Suárez kept making headlines for the worst reasons… Even with Maradona himself coming out to defend him, saying Suárez reminded him of his younger self… Nobody listened, nobody cared, the media train kept going at full speed and before you knew it… Suarez was a villain, a madman, a vampire… the cannibal of amsterdam… And with everyone distracted by these novelties, I think a lot of people forgot to stop, set themselves straight and admire a man who at one point could argue that he was the best player in the world… a man who, while playing in the toughest era in history, managed to steal not one but two European Golden Boots from the tight grip of Ronaldo and Messi… And what is even worse is that the people who were distracted back then, seem to have forgotten him now… but did Luis Suárez deserve to be the most hated player in the world? Because after looking back on his life, I’m not so sure… I can pretty much pinpoint the year where everything went wrong… it was 1994… The year his family moved to Montevideo… Suárez was so afraid of moving into a big city, his parents even let him stay behind with his grandma for a while… but once he did move, it was even worse than he thought, the other kids bullied him because of his accent, he wanted to go outside and play football, but it seemed too dangerous to go alone and once he actually did, a car literally ran over his foot and broke one of his metatarsal bones… Before you knew it, Suárez was seriously depressed… as he said… “Back then nothing seemed to ever go right, I didn’t wanna study, I didn’t wanna train… I was angry at everyone so… I began rebelling and that worked against me”. .
. And then he was hit with an even heavier blow… at 14, his parents divorced and his mom was left to take care of 7 children… forcing Suárez to start working as a street sweeper, sending him further down the rabbit hole… A year later, he was skipping practice, going out at night, drinking, mixing up with shady people and of course it was right there that the first incident occurred… With Suaréz headbutting a referee, nearly breaking his nose and getting into trouble with the club… But you know what I gotta go on a tangent here… because this minor moment ended up culminating in a literal assassination attempt… Look I'll be fast, pretty much his team was associated with the cartels and had the habit of bribing and intimidating referee’s… so of course, they did just that trying to make sure Suárez wouldn’t get in real trouble. .
. but then a journalist caught wind of this and before he knew it, he was getting shot on his own doorstep, only surviving because the hitman was just some guy who owed money to the cartel so he chickened out and ended up instead shooting him in the leg… So yeah, there’s your daily dose of obscure stuff I find while researching these videos… moving on… As weird as it sounds, after all of this, Nacional almost dismissed Suárez from the team… only allowing him to stay after one of the coaches decided to vouch for him, warning him that this was his last chance… but thankfully, after this, for the first time in his life, Suárez got really lucky… because just as he needed to get his act together… he met Sofia Balbi… his future wife… and seemingly the only person who could set him straight, calming him down and convincing him that he could make it as a footballer, leading his confidence to sky rocket and leading him to blow past what anyone expected of him, scoring 63 goals in a year, only one short of breaking the all time record in his academy, which literally belonged to Ruben Sosa, one of the greatest Uruguayan players of all time… At this point it seemed that almost like a guardian angel, Sofia had come into his life to turn his luck around… but then it happened… Sofia’s family emigrated to Barcelona and Suárez was left alone once more, he could have easily dropped down into the abyss once again, but instead he made Sofia one promise that would change everything… he told her “I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna be so good they’ll have to bring me to Europe and as soon as possible I’ll be by your side in Barcelona”. .
. And as you know, he didn’t just talk the talk, he also walked all over his competition, and just 2 years later he made it to the first tier in Uruguay, scoring 12 goals and winning the league… all on his debut season…and lucky for him, on one of his best matches of the year… Henk Veldmate, a former Groningen player, was watching… and though he was there to scout one of his teammates, Suárez’s performance left him with no doubt that he simply had to sign him… And so… even when Nacional asked for 800k, far more than they expected… Henk insisted and the moment Suárez got to Europe, Sofia was waiting for him… And thank god she was… because by the time Suárez arrived in training, he was like 7 kilos overweight… The board thought Hank was crazy for thinking this guy could ever be a top player and the only reason he even made it to the pitch was that Sofia began preparing all of his meals, forcing him to give up his coca cola, which he was damn near addicted to… And so… only a few weeks later, looking fitter than ever, Suárez was scoring his first goal for Groningen in what was their first European campaign in 13 years… However his temper was quick to get a hold of him, as in the second leg of that match, he was already angrily yelling at the manager as he got substituted, making him so angry he smashed his umbrella into the ground, watching the rest of the game while soaking in the rain… However, with both the fans and the manager already turning their backs on Suárez… the next match with 8 minutes to go and losing 3 to 1 to Vitesse… Suárez won a penalty and scored twice in two minutes to turn the score around in injury time… and just like that suddenly the stadium was cheering his name and Suarez was celebrating hand in hand with the coach…. You just can’t deny greatness and so from there on out, even if Suárez couldn’t contain his inner monster… the fans didn’t care… In February, in just 5 matches, he pulled off 4 goals, but also 3 yellow cards and a red… then he got his debut for the national team and immediately got his first red card there as well… and still… nobody cared, he was so good, it justified everything else… Or at least it did, until Ajax offered a measly 3.
5 million for the player, leading him to sue Groningen once they rejected that embarrassing offer… ruining his relationship with the fans for good, even though Ajax would eventually cave in and pay 7. 5 million instead… Regardless, very soon it had been proven that he was worth all that money and maybe even more… As Suárez would hit the ground running in Amsterdam, scoring 5 goals in his first 5 matches, pairing extremely well with Huntelaar and finishing his first season with 36 goal contributions, absolute world class numbers especially considering how often he was subbed on and off… However, it still wasn’t all great, even though the following year, he would bump his numbers up to an incredible 47 goal contributions, he quickly became one of the most despised players in the league, often being accused of being a diver and cheat, even his manager, the iconic Marco Van Basten would often clash with him over his constant lack of discipline, at one point accumulating 6 yellow cards in the space of a month and half, eventually even being suspended by the league… but above all Ajax was still falling way short of winning the league…it was time to take responsibility and so… they handed him the captain’s armband despite all the chaos… and it paid back massively… with Suárez laying down a mind boggling 73 goal contributions in a season… all in just 41 hundred minutes of football, meaning he was racking up a goal and an assist virtually every game… but even after that…. Ajax still lost the league, this time by a single point… yeah… at least he did win the cup and was named as the league’s player of the year… but it clearly wasn’t enough reward for what he had just pulled off… Regardless, over summer, things would get heated once again… Suárez was called up to his first ever world cup and it was… I don’t even know what to call it… Suárez was phenomenal, up to the quarter finals he literally scored or assisted every single one of Uruguay’s goals, he and Forlán seemed destined to pull off a miracle, after all it was the first time in 40 years that Uruguay had made it to the quarters… But then it all got seriously wild… with the match against Ghana in its dying minutes and the result settled at a 1 goal draw… Suárez watched as the ball was about to hit the net, sending Uruguay out of the competition and so he used his hands to get it out… being instantly shown a red card… but as he walked down the tunnel in tears… he looked back and he watched as Asamoah Gyan missed the penalty leading Uruguay to the semi finals all thanks to him… his celebration said it all… he would do anything to win… it had been worth it… this was his very own “Hand Of God”.
. . However, without him, Uruguay would succumb in the next stage, failing to make it to the final and many would forever see Suárez as nothing more than a cheat….
so really… Was it worth it? I don’t know… But what I do know is that after a season like this, you probably expected me to tell you that he then moved to some European giant, but instead, he stayed and his form dropped, though he was still world class, with a goal contribution every game, that wasn’t the problem… The problem was that that year Suárez also finally succumbed to his greatest impulse and bit Otman Bakkal in a match against PSV… earning the nickname… “The Cannibal of Amsterdam”. .
. Sure he insisted Bakkal had repeatedly stepped on him and had been trying to get a reaction out of him, but nobody cared… Suárez was suspended for 7 matches… and before he was even done with his ban, Liverpool swooped in and completed his transfer for 26 million euros, ironically on the exact same day they finally sold Torres to Chelsea… and he would have even been their record signing, if not for the fact that on that same day Liverpool decided to blow 41 million euros on the mighty Andy Carroll, who according to trans fermarkt was worth about 2. 5… But yeah… No matter how many goals he scored at Ajax, his fame for being a complete madman preceded him and though he was able to change the minds of many of his teammates who thought it was a bad idea to sign him by taking liverpool from 12th to 6th place in under 3 months… the next season things got bad… You see, at first it all seemed great, Suárez had just played the most successful tournament of his career, leading Uruguay to the Copa America title after 16 years, taking the MVP award after once again being involved in seemingly every goal they scored and even once he was back with Liverpool he started the season with 12 goal contributions in 13 matches… but then… in a match against Manchester United, he got into an altercation with Evra and ended up calling him a word with some seriously racial undertones and getting an 8 match ban… once again completely ruining his image, getting caught up in a media storm and allowing all the drama to get him off his game completely, only scoring 9 goals from October to April, even getting booed by the fans and at one point not only showing his middle finger to the stands, but refusing to shake hands with Evra and kicking a ball into the United dugout… it wasn’t pretty…it looked like Suárez was once again stuck in a hole but as always, he dragged himself out of it with one unbelievable performance after the other, pulling off 43 goal contributions over the next 44 matches… only to succumb to his impulses once again in a match against Chelsea, biting Ivanovic and being banned for the rest of the season… I just wish I could have seen Bakkal’s face when he got the news that it had happened again… Regardless, with Liverpool slowly realizing how much of a marketing liability Suarez’ could be, they forced him to go to anger management classes… In fact, his shrink even confirmed that he did also believe it all stemmed from repressed feelings from his childhood but regardless none of this stopped him from making the shortlist for the PFA Player Of The Year award and making the team of the year… However it did lead him to claim that the media was making his family’s life unbearable and that he had to move out of the country, coincidentally right after Real Madrid had approached him… only to then, ironically try to force a move to Arsenal, who submitted a bid of 40 million and 1 euro, after hearing that Liverpool was willing to begin negotiations at 40 million… leading the owner of Liverpool himself to tweet “What do you think they’re smoking over at the Emirates?
”. . .
And thank god he didn’t leave, because the season that followed was simply one of the greatest in the history of the premier league… 31 goals… 17 assists… in 33 matches… 1 contribution every 61 minutes… breaking the all time goal scoring record, while also being the league’s top assist provider… pulling off one of the greatest performances of all time against Norwich, with 4 mouth watering goals and closing the season by winning the PFA Player Of The Year award as well as the European Golden Shoe, something no other player managed to do while Crisitiano Ronaldo and Messi were both in Spain… and somehow Liverpool would still bottle the title, despite being on top of the table with 3 matches to go… And still despite all these achievements there was no doubt Suárez was still public enemy number one, I even found a newspaper clipping where they wrote “He’s the whiniest, most annoying player on earth… Though there are many aspiring to that spot, he is easily the most hated player in football… There is nothing good about Suárez aside from his feet… Mark it down… he will do something crazy in this world cup… I wouldn’t be surprised if he punched a baby at this point”. . .
and well they weren’t wrong…. all he needed to make sure he would get very close to the top of the Ballon D’Or rankings was to stay out of trouble and have a good world cup… but after a stunning performance against England in the opening match, he then… with billions watching, in the biggest tournament on earth decide to strike again… this time biting Chiellini and being handed a four month ban from all football activities including training with the team just as he finally fulfilled his promise to Sofia, signing for Barcelona and becoming the 3rd more expensive player of all time, at 81 million euros… As you might imagine, after all of this, despite being easily one of the best players in the world… FIFA didn’t even nominate him to the Ballon D’Or… Still, even though he would only be allowed to join the rest of the team by late October… Suárez would quickly pick up the pace and establishing himself as a key player in what maybe the greatest attacking trio of all time alongside Messi and Neymar, hitting top form over the last 4 months of the season with 26 goal contributions in 21 matches, being especially impressive in the Champions League, scoring twice against both PSG and Man City, before getting 2 assists vs Bayern in the semis and then scoring against Juve in the final turn the result in Barcelona’s favor… adding the Champions League to their league and cup double, before going on to be the player of the tournament at the club world cup and getting a goal and an assist in the european supercup to win every single one of the 5 trophies available to him that season… And to add to all of that… maybe it was because he was finally at peace in Barcelona among Sofia and her family… but suddenly the chaos had stopped… Suárez no longer seemed completely mad and so, the following season, he proceed to pull the most extraordinary numbers of his career… 59 goals and 24 assists in 53 matches for 83 goal contributions in a single season… completely destroying any claims that Messi and Neymar ever outshined him, at one point getting 4 goals and 3 assists in a single match vs Deportivo before going on to score another 4 in the following match, becoming the first player to ever do that in La Liga, eventually tottallling 40 league goals to take the Pichichi and the European Golden Shoe, while also leading the league in assists, something not even Messi had ever managed to do… Had Barcelona had a better UCL campaign and had Suárez not missed the Copa America due to injury, who knows what could have happened at the Ballon D’Or, but with the Euros and all he ended up placing only fourth, bellow even the likes of Antoine Griezmann… was it fair? I’m not so sure… Regardless, the following year despite still pulling 56 goals and assists and being involved in the greatest champions league comeback of all time, Barcelona settled for just a Copa Del Rey title….
then to make things worse, Neymar leaves to PSG the following year and though Barcelona still managed to go 39 matches unbeaten in the league among all of this… then the first signs of their incoming crisis come up… as they got embarrassed by Roma who managed to knock them out of the UCL after a 4 to 1 defeat at the Camp Nou… In the middle of all of this Suárez powers began dwindling and maybe still reflecting the negative image he had over the early days of his career, many of the fans were strangely quick to turn on him, especially as Barcelona got embarrassed once again the following season, this time by Liverpool, leading them to complain about the team’s away performances… and especially about Suárez who hadn't scored an away goal in the Champions League knockout stage in 5 years… Add to this a bit of weight gain and some injuries and just a year later Suárez was getting kicked out of Barcelona with seemingly no empathy, despite being their 3rd highest all time top scorer… as Messi would write on Instagram, “You deserved to be sent off like a legend, not kicked out like you were”. . .
