Luisito

Luis Suárez says he gets angry playing, but there is a nicer side to him too

In the first interview since his ban for racial abuse, the Liverpool striker talks openly about that incident and his football beliefs

Luis Suárez could see the No24 coming. The final whistle had just gone on the opening day of the season and the West Brom striker Peter Odemwingie was heading straight for him. Liverpool had lost 3-0, Suárez had missed a couple of good chances, he was wound up, tense, and now this. But this time there was no confrontation. Instead there was comfort, counsel. "He came over to me and told me that I should forget about all that other stuff," Suárez says. "He said that I'm a great player and that I should just worry about playing."

Odemwingie is not the first person to tell him so. As Suárez talks it is a recurring theme. There is a succession of men who have sought to shift his focus, going back a long way; men who have sought to channel his intensity, that competitive edge. "If you had seen me before …" he says. There is a pause. He leans forward a little, elbows on the table, the sleeves of his training top pulled up high. His fingers move slowly as he talks, twisting the thin wedding ring on his right hand. Outside, through the glass doors that look across Liverpool's Melwood training ground, the rain hammers down. "If you had seen me before," he continues, "you'd realise that I used to be even worse."

Luis Suárez is not laughing. This is not a joke. Nor is it a plea for sympathy. And he is not fishing for compliments. It is just a statement, delivered evenly, like the majority of what he says. Yet this is not the self-congratulation of the reformed character. It is not the self-loathing either. He walks past the European Cup, past the rows and rows of boots and trainers, and up the stairs, taking a seat in an office overlooking the fields, still in his kit. He talks well; occasionally with eloquence and always with a self-awareness that is striking, even a little disarming. He says he wants to change, but doesn't want to entirely.

The contradictions are many. Suárez feels misunderstood, but this is no sob-story – he does not excuse, nor blame. He says he does not care what people say about him, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, somewhere inside, he does. He recognises himself, even as he does not. He says he is changing, because at times he has done himself and his team no favours, but he is not trying to be anything else. That, after all, is what got him this far. Without that competitiveness, without that edge, he would not be sitting here.

Listening to him talk it is clear that while the image does not stand up, off the pitch at least, the way he plays is ultra-competitive, confrontational, win-at-all-costs. That brings a price.

"There are people who criticise me and that's normal because of the way I am on the pitch," he concedes. "I get angry, I get tense. My wife says that if people reach conclusions as to what I am like based on what they see from me on the pitch they would say I am a guy who is always annoyed, always in a bad mood, they'd say what must it be like to live with me. There are two of me, two different people."

Liverpool's new manager, Brendan Rodgers, insists that Suárez is a good guy. Staff at the club describe him as quiet and professional. By his own admission, he first came to the Netherlands at 19 for "love": his then girlfriend, now his wife, lived in Europe and it was a way of starting a new life together. He talks proudly of how his daughter has been going to his games from the age of 15 days. On the pitch, though, he is transformed. Pressure and personality play their part in making him the player he is. So does the past.

"I have sacrificed so much to be where I am and fought so hard for it. I can't conceive of anyone wasting even five minutes in a game. I can't bear the idea of not trying to make the most of every single second. There are only three million people in Uruguay but there is such hunger for glory: you'll do anything to make it, you have that extra desire to run, to suffer. I can't explain our success but I think that's a reason.

"I played in the streets with my friends, barefooted. That was the way we lived. I never had the chance to say to my mother or father: 'I want these boots.' It's different in Europe. They have it easier. I saw that already in Holland. Kids of 17 or 18 years old were given cars already. Audis. Big cars. In Uruguay you don't have that. That can be an advantage: you don't give everything on the pitch if you have it all."

Now Suárez does. It makes no difference. He could have become comfortable but has not. The lessons are learned, the character forged. "People say to me: 'How can you run so much, how can you suffer so much, how can a defeat hurt you so much?' Because there is so much effort and sacrifice behind it. I think Latin Americans value their position more than other players.

"And the pressure is greater than people realise. It makes you do things that you never imagined: eat more, eat less, act differently," he says. "It does something to you. There have been games when I've said to myself: 'Why was I so stressed, why did I feel under such pressure when all I ever wanted was to play football?' As time passes, you realise you have to be more mature, that you have to take the games as just another game. Still give everything, still care, but not live it beforehand. Just play it. Don't get tense and wound up before the game.

"Coaches have told me I can help the team much more if I don't talk, if I don't moan. You reflect. Oscar Tabarez [Uruguay's manager], in a game against Peru in the qualification for the World Cup, told me I had let him down because he had placed a lot of trust in me, but he gave me another chance. I remember a game against Argentina too when he said to me: 'Luis, either you calm down or I take you off.' I could not carry on playing so crazily. In the second half, I focused better, I scored, I played better. Coaches who are intelligent see that. They warn you and that helps. Advice coming from the right people is always welcome.

"At Liverpool too. Steven [Gerrard] said to me during the game against United: 'Prove you're one of the best players in the world, that's what matters.'"

Talk turns to United; inevitably, it turns too to Patrice Evra and the eight-match ban that Suárez received for racially abusing the Manchester United full-back in a game at Anfield last year. It is not something Suárez particularly wants to dwell upon but it remains unresolved. He insists that he wants to move on, just as Odemwingie advised, but there are scars, a sense of injustice. He admits to feeling like a marked man, that he has felt singled out for criticism from the start. "People spoke for the sake of speaking and didn't know what they were talking about," he says. "Some people said what suited them. But that's in the past now."

The word negro in Spanish does not mean "negro", and certainly does not mean the other n-word. In Uruguay, it is a word so widely used as to often be little more than mate. "In Spanish, in Latin America, there's a way of speaking that is totally different. There are words you can say here that you could not say there and vice-versa. They would be taken in a totally different way," says Suárez. But perhaps that is not even the point given that after three days of video evidence at a three-man Independent Regulatory Commission, lip readers produced no hard evidence that he said what he was accused of saying.

But what is done is done. Move on as Odemwingie said. "They punished me, I shut up and I forget it, I want to leave it now," he says. "It's in the past. I'd prefer not to keep talking about it, otherwise it will never end."

Easier said than done. For all the talk of Olympic spirit, he was booed by opposing supporters. "What hurt me most was not that they whistled me but that they whistled the national anthem. I think that's a lack of respect. There's a clear example: the other day they were doing an interview with Usain Bolt and they started playing the American national anthem in the background, so he went silent. That's respect. That's what any normal person would do. But if they whistle me on the pitch when I have the ball that doesn't worry me.

"They are opponents and they want to have a go, that's it. They're not people who know me. It's just another stadium whistling. What Odemwingie said matters a thousand times more than some whistling." And yet, would he prefer it if fans were not on his back? "Of course."

He adds: "What matters is the people I know and Liverpool always supported me. Whenever my wife or I came across people at the club or out in the street, they were good to us. That made us feel wanted and comfortable. That was important in deciding to continue. Last year good things happened as well as bad ones. The manager [Kenny Dalglish] always supported me, he kept putting me in the team, he kept faith in me always, the players defended me as well. The press might have talked but I always felt entirely backed by the people around me."

Support was repaid with a contract renewal. Now Suárez wants to leave all that behind and channel his energy, that intensity, into the football. He says he is determined to play in the Champions League. "There were," he says, "clubs that wanted me but my priority was always to stay and sign for Liverpool. I'm happy here and the manager said he wanted me. It is a dream. This has always been a big club in Uruguay. They were on television a lot and I used to play with Liverpool on the PlayStation: my team would have Gerrard and Torres."

This is not just a new season, it feels like a new beginning. For the whole club and for Suárez. Now, though, the responsibility is greater and for the first time there are questions being raised about his footballing contribution.

He began his career as a winger and still does not refer to himself as a No9. That, though, is his job now. Eighty-one goals in 110 games for Ajax was an extraordinary return. For Liverpool he has scored 15 league goals since his £22m transfer.

Last season Suárez hit the post eight times in the league – more than any other player. Bad luck? Over-thinking? Rodgers has told him there is no excuse; he just has to score. Shades of Bill Shankly: "If you're in the penalty area and you're not sure what to do, stick it in the net and we can discuss the options afterwards."

Suárez prefers to think in terms of scoring bursts. "In Holland I was lucky. It felt like everything went in. I could shoot with my shoulder or my tummy and it would go in. Now it's different. I understand that I have to score more goals than I am scoring. Maybe you try to be so precise to make sure that the keeper doesn't reach it that you end up hitting the post. Sometimes you hit it badly and it goes in. This year, maybe I'll try to hit it badly."

If the responsibility is great, so is the optimism under Rodgers. Suárez must score goals but he should not have to carry the team – he refers two or three times to feeling backed up by his team-mates. The new style is more his style. "It suits me," he says. "[Rodgers] knows I never stand still, that I am always moving, not a static, fixed striker, and he thinks that in the way we are going to play now I can do a lot of damage. He's a great coach. He has talent and you can see that he has studied in the way he plans his sessions. He talks constantly during training sessions and even speaks a bit of Spanish."

Rodgers's approach sets him apart in England, Suárez says. "There are lots of teams here that aren't very well set up tactically. He's a coach that can see that if you can work tactically you can derive a lot of benefit from that; you can be different. If you're well organised, and you can play the ball, you can be successful."

What does he mean by tactically poor? "Well," he says, starting to signal positions on the table with his fingers. "If I am playing centre forward here and I drop off the front into this area, both centre backs might come with me in England. And then a team-mate can go into the space and be one on one with the goalkeeper."

Signalling to the right-back position, he says: "Or, if you look at their line of four at the back and this guy always goes up the pitch and never comes back, then you can exploit that. Or if both full-backs go up, then you isolate the two centre-backs. When one full-back goes the other should stay and a midfielder drops in, but there are teams where that doesn't happen and you can take advantage. There are coaches who see that and coaches who don't. He sees it."

Then there is Liverpool's commitment to possession. "It is as the manager says: if all your defenders are very open and the goalkeeper is able to play a bit, it is impossible for the other team to get the ball off you. Then you have the midfielders who come in to get the ball off the back four and you play. His way of looking at the game is very intelligent and I think he's right. It's impossible for the other team to get the ball off you unless you make a simple mistake, a bad pass, an individual error."

Against West Brom that was exactly what happened. But contrary to some critics, coaches such as Rodgers would argue that does not mean the model should be thrown out. Confidence is needed to play this way, and that takes time. The temptation when under pressure is just to hoof it; you need nerve to keep playing and you learn that and are better for it. As Suárez points out, the hoof solves nothing either. "For me, playing in England where all the centre-backs are tall and strong, the long punt up the pitch is no good to me. I need the ball on the floor.

"It is always a difficult thing to start with a new manager and a new team system but I think we played fairly well against West Brom. We knew it would be difficult. It's OK because we trust in the new manager and we are all very happy with him.

"We now press higher up the pitch and it has to be collective, organised. If I go to pressure the man, I lead the pressure but I need to be backed by Steven and by, if we go by the first game, [Fabio] Borini or Stewart [Downing]. And if we all pressure together, then it works. But it's not easy. You need to be clear in the idea, you need to work at it and try to adapt to it bit by bit. Then, with time, you will be able to impose it.

"Obviously, we're not going to play like Barcelona but the aim is similar. The manager has been studying in Spain, in Barcelona itself, and he was in Holland too, where they play good football. The idea is nice, my team-mates are very happy with it. The idea is to have the ball all the time, to pressure to get it back. Keep the ball, don't panic, look for the spaces at the right time, not play so fast, so desperately, as we did last season.

"It is a new season, we have a new coach, a new idea, a new style that is different to the one we had before and that's difficult. It will work, but it will take time."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/24/luis-suarez-liverpool?CMP=twt_gu

Long read, but well worth it.

Great article. I never doubted Suarez being a good guy. The media have always been c*nts towards our players and our club. In fact, I would choose Suarez type player (who gives his all in every game and in training) over a Torres type player (who sulks most of his time and only plays his best when he chooses to).

A brilliant read this!

Great read, I've always respected him and now do even more. Great man, great player.

"I have sacrificed so much to be where I am and fought so hard for it."
Luis Suarez

How do I make that a sig?

Click on "profile" right under the GL banner. then click on "Signature", then just copy and paste that sentence there.

Thank you.

Avatar changed no problem.

Sig not showing up. Oh well.

Click on "Profile" in the top bar.

Then select the "Signature" tab in the profile page.

Paste/type what you want in the text box that appears, then click "Save."


That should take care of it. It make take a minute or two to start appearing for all of your posts (for whatever reason). If it still doesn't, make sure you don't have signatures hidden.

When I click on signature the message is there as I did press save.

I'll wait it out.

ynwa wrote:When I click on signature the message is there as I did press save.

I'll wait it out.

Would suggest you to first try out the previw to be sure then go for the final save. .

Just a fantastic read ynwa, thanks for sharing.

It always brings joy to me to have an insight on our best players' history and ground philosophy as there is much you can learn from these.

Suarez's story is like many footballers yet the perceptions behind his principles is whats most striking. We are lucky to have such a mentally strong player who has taken more criticism and malice that could break a weaker mind.

In my eyes my respect and reverence for him has gone up after this.

7 goals in 11 games so far this season.

5 and 6 in the league, I think.

Great start from him, I hope he stays consistent like this throughout the season.

ynwa wrote:7 goals in 11 games so far this season.

5 and 6 in the league, I think.

Its actually 9 games 7 goals and 3 assists in all competitions.

Nishank wrote:

ynwa wrote:7 goals in 11 games so far this season.

5 and 6 in the league, I think.

Its actually 9 games 7 goals and 3 assists in all competitions.

This is the Suarez we all have been waiting to see. If he can do this on a regular basis, he can be the perfect CF for Rodgers's system.

Here's hoping he keeps up this form.

We are going to need another CF in the summer regardless, preferably someone very much similar to Suarez (I'm talking about Jovetic ).

It has come to my attention that Suarez will not play, no matter what, on the wings, and he is our front man under BR. It would be useless for us to buy a goal poacher in the summer and play Suarez as an inside forward because he simply excels as the lone forward. Kenny partnered Suarez with Carroll and that didn't work well because Suarez simply needed the space to operate on top by himself, and Carroll was occupying that space. Against Sunderland, I think it was (correct me if I'm wrong), BR played Borini on top and Suarez on the left. For the first half Suarez was invisible and didn't get enough touches on the ball to do anything. In the second half Rodgers took off Fabio and moved Luis up top and long behold, within minutes he gets a goal to tie the game. So far this season as the center forward Luis has undergone his best form for us goal scoring wise.

They say don't change something that ain't broken. It's clear that Suarez's best position is on top for us, so we should forget about buying a poacher and concentrate on adding goals to the inside forward positions. At the moment we are severely lacking goals in these two areas. Sterling and Suso have goals in them but they are much too young and they need to learn the trade before they can start scoring 10-15 goals as season from there. Borini has goals in him but just like Sterling/Suso, he's young and needs time to adapt and get comfortable. Downing and Cole need to pack their bags because they are not good enough to play for us. Assaidi, from what he's shown so far, is very tricky without end product in the goals area (his end product in crossing and assisting isn't something to be worried about). Pacheco/Yesil/Morgan are again inexperienced and young to really take the reigns at this point.

Now, here's why we can't afford NOT to get Jovetic. At the tender age of 20 he was assigned the task of carrying the offensive for Fiorentina and he took the opportunity with both hands. Now at 22 he's about to break into the WC category this season. For those of you haven't seen much of him or only season video highlights, trust me when I say he is just as good as Suarez. The good thing about Jovetic, like Suarez, he is very versatile, but unlike Suarez, his game is better when played as a inside forward or a supporting striker than up top. The reason why he hasn't been scoring a lot for la Viola is that he hasn't got anyone else playing with him that can attract the defenders attention. Every game he gets 3/4 players marking him and not giving him a inch of space to operate in. Playing him with Suarez would absolutely ensure that at least one of them would be free to run the show each night as it is almost impossible to guard both of them at the same time. We will not find a better player for our style playing as an inside forward than Jovetic not named Messi or Ronaldo.

I think £24m should be enough for la Viola to part with him, and the longer we wait the more it becomes.

Swag:
You're not necessarily wrong. Like I said, I think Suarez can be a perfect match with Rodgers system. He just needs complimentary wide players and his scoring touch.

I do think Assaidi will chip in with goals. Remember he is still adapting to a new team/league/etc. He is tricky and has shown that he can add a few goals in the Eredivisie. However, he isn't the goal-scoring winger we really need.

I don't think we'll sign a "big-name" striker and then relegate them to a wide-forward role. We'll either buy a pacy-striker who is somewhat under the radar (with a good record) and move them wide, or buy a wide-forward that can show they can and will look to get in behind and score goals. My list of players would include:
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: He's a good goal-scorer in France, has loads of pace, and can play at RW. Oh, did I mention that he's 6'2" (187cm) and an absolute stud athlete, meaning that he provides an aerial threat as well...
- Theo Walcott: scores when he plays, one of the fastest players in the Prem, and appears to want the heck out of Arsenal. (Might take a bit of convincing for Rodgers if he is not going to play him through the middle.
- Dries Mertens: some rags have been linking us to this player since the summer window. He's a helluva winger on his day. He beats defenders, can interchange with other forwards in a front three, and can most definitely find the back of the net (21 in 33 games last season from the left side... )

I believe that with Suarez at CF, we are essentially playing with the ideal false9. He will drop deep to get the ball and look to play in others, but on his day he can put it in the back of the net with relative ease. What we need is an established goal-scorer that can achieve results from the wings. This may well have been Rodgers's plan all along, given he was pushing so hard for Dempsey in the summer window.

Jovetic could most certainly play the position I described. However, I'm not sure that we could afford him, or that he would want to move to a team where he would not be the focal point of the attack.

Nishank wrote:

ynwa wrote:7 goals in 11 games so far this season.

5 and 6 in the league, I think.

Its actually 9 games 7 goals and 3 assists in all competitions.

Seems like he didn't want me to look like an idiot so didn't want to score.

I'll predict he'll have 10 goals by 15 games.

If you read any of my waffle without signing the petition for Kevin's inquest I will hunt you down and end you.

Otherwise, please be gentle.


There's a certain honesty that comes from mischief. We don't trust the pristine. Cristiano Ronaldo is handsome, talented, dedicated, and above all unloved. Mario Balotelli gets more adoration than an Everton loan signing. We like our angels to have dirty faces because it makes them all the more accessible; it kicks away the pedestal. What happens if you take that to its farthest reaches? Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you Luis Suarez: a man who doesn't just kick away the pedestal, he's a man who sets fire to it and puts out the blaze with his own victorious piss. What the *bleep* are you gonna do about it?

By demonstrating the raw determination of a born Kopite, Liverpool's little Uruguayan has not only given his fans the chance to live vicariously through him, he's also united opposition supporters in hatred. It's given Liverpool fans a flag round which to rally. So, thanks for that: we needed it. And it's a proper flag at that, not one of those placcy ones the cockneys use to plug the gaping emptiness that comes from being a Billionaire's wank sock. It's like family: nothing gets a warring family together like an outside threat. 'Nobody calls my brother an arsehole but me!'

And so Luis Suarez has fought off everything from Gollum's meanest stare to Ferguson's bottle-bank. The apologist Premier League currently finds itself in the precarious position of the wide-eyed Big Game Hunter who, having just missed the onrushing beast with his last poison dart, quietly evacuates into his own pants. The gnashing teeth and guttural roars as Luis Suarez hurtles towards them is what will now be their last rites. Are you happy now David Moyes? How about you Mr Ferguson?

Suarez is a lesson in the dangers of building man into monster. Hannibal Lecter could give the Nevilles' midwife nightmares in that mask, but stick a pink bow on him and all you have is 'The Silence of Bo Peep'. Here the Premier League has a beast at least partly of their own making, through continued and overt demonization. They say 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', and Luis Suarez has faced hook, crook and book in England. But Luis isn't just alive, he's mutated into something more dangerous: Frankenstein's monster; a Uruguayan Werewolf in Liverpool; the big '*bleep* YOU!'

It should have all been so different. An eight match ban for racism was supposed to be the silver bullet. Above and beyond games missed, I remember claims that the incident highlighted 'the very worst of football Tribalism'. One man's ban apparently became the battle between good and evil. And so, watching England flap to a 4-2 defeat against Sweden, I thought of the delicious irony of how someone like Suarez could restore England's International lustre! How England could do with their own Pantomime Villain to add some umph.

International football in this country was already circling the toilet bowl by the time Michael Owen sold his soul to 'Ingerlund', so it's not just Liverpool fans who became increasingly unlikely to put up the St George bunting. National pride is the stuff of Churchill, of missed penalties and Gazza's tears, not midweek jaunts to give every man and his cat an England Cap in 'Meaningless Friendly 502'. When 'El Pistolero' was pilloried in the English media- and football in general- for being a 'racist', his Uruguyan countrymen closed ranks and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. When Suarez was accused of being a 'diver' by FIFA Vice-President Jim Boyce, the Uruguayan FA wrote to FIFA in a manner that can only be described as designed to make sphincters quiver. A big *bleep*-off handbook on how to rehabilitate the cowardly Three Lions lives and breaths in the never-say-die attitude of Luis Suarez, and yet still we form disorderly queues to feast on the entrails of our sportsmen.

England doesn't have a loveable rogue. They have a few wrong 'uns no doubt, but they're either vacuous to the point of inane or just a nasty shade of Nouveau Riche. Liverpool, however, have their first, properly mischievous little Git since Robbie Fowler was seen sniffing his way down the touchline. England never really appreciated Robbie, so there's no surprise that Suarez fails to fit the template too, and it remains to be seen what heights Suarez will soar to. How long he will stay? Part of the drama is watching a clinical trial unfold in front of us, because never before have the effects of playing every game like its your last been tested on the meager chassis of the human body. Can he last? Most players have either the talent or the attitude, Luis has an equal abundance of both. To watch Suarez is to watch inspiration grapple with perspiration like a freshly tweezed Jose Enrique in a cage match with his own sexuality.

We hope there's a good few chapters left to be written, but for now Liverpool have that cheeky goalscoring forward, around which all of the best hand-me-down stories are written. Journalists are surveying their broken greenhouses and politely asking if Luis can return stones to sender. What's great about this fella is that despite all the other bullshit in football, he makes sure there's no danger of Liverpool fans falling out of love with the game any time soon. No matter how hard the sky was falling, you'd never stop watching Robbie Fowler's Liverpool. And likewise, no matter how up the tits are, you'll never stop watching Luis Suarez' Liverpool. 'Drive fans away' my *bleep* arse! He has you so far off your seat you could get on the end of a Stoke through ball. Robbie Fowler will always be God, and he'll always be my hero, but -and I know pain may well follow- I think I'll tentatively announce his successor.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=299929.0

great article!!

What an amazing read. I read it about 10 times to take in the greatness of it. Thanks for sharing ynwa Major props to the writer

Also at this part

To watch Suarez is to watch inspiration grapple with perspiration like a freshly tweezed Jose Enrique in a cage match with his own sexuality.

Suarez has officially broken his goal tile in all comps from last season.

He had 17 in all comps.
Now he has 18 goals Half a season.

Do you guys think he can beat Torres' 33?

Messiah "Aggerswagger" wrote:Suarez has officially broken his goal tile in all comps from last season.

He had 17 in all comps.
Now he has 18 goals Half a season.

Do you guys think he can beat Torres' 33?

Torres had a 'Gerrard in Prime', Suarez have a kid and a Down.