A kid from the streets, it is part of his life that he has to defend himself when he is threatened. Luis Suarez has certainly stirred up the world of football.
Earlier this year, an American sportswriter, Wright Thompson, went to Uruguay, to find more about Luis Suárez. Thompson had heard of one story from Suárez’s childhood, of him being sent off in a youth match and then head-butting the referee. He wanted to know if it was true. Thompson went to Montevideo and spent weeks searching but everywhere he went people defended Suárez. He tracked down Enrique Moller, a local who reviewed all youth league disciplinary problems. Moller remembered an incident involving the 15-year-old Suárez, but said he had no details. At Nacional, where Suárez played his youth football, they told Thompson all the records were lost. Thompson felt that people did not really appreciate him, a foreign journalist, asking questions about a guy they felt was persecuted outside their country. A couple of English journalists found out recently when they travelled to one of the team’s press conferences where Suárez was due to talk, three security bouncers made it clear they were required to leave.
He met Martinez Chenlo, one of the sports editors of a Montevideo paper. Chenlo told him the same as everyone else; it was garbage. He rang Ricardo Perdomo, who had coached Suarez, who explained what had happened. Suárez was 16, not 15. Nacional were playing Danubio, another local team, and it was not a head-butt. He was simply protesting about a referee’s mistake, and who doesn’t do that? Sure, his head hit the referee’s face, but not on purpose. He fell and one thing you learn about Suárez, he does a lot of falling.
“Note in the film footage from his game against Italy, how Suárez stumbles after jumping for the ball and how his face hits the shoulder of the Italian player,” one report from Uruguay described. Another report said "the only people who cared about the biting were English". “There was no single picture to prove there was a bite,” according to El Observador, questioning whether the photographs from foreign news agencies had been altered. El País reminded its readers that the English press “harassed the Uruguayan after the bite on Branislav Ivanovic”. Últimas Noticias noted: “Nobody talks about how Suárez was injured in the jaw and the eye”.
Cathal Kelly, a sports columnist for the Toronto Star, wrote about Suárez in December 2013. “He will do something insane at this summer’s World Cup – mark it down. Afterwards, he will prompt an ugly transfer saga for a world-record fee.” It is certainly true that a less talented player would have been kicked out of the sport or push to the edge.
The bite is one thing, but it is actually the pretence that it never occurred that tells us more. He did the same after the Ivanovic incident, wanting punishment for the Chelsea defender. More likely, it is deeper than that.
Suarez is so heavily indulged he has started to believe what he says about it all being the imagination of others. If there is one person around him telling him he needs time with Dr Steve Peters, the psychiatrist at Anfield, we can be sure there are another 100 or so (mainly Uruguayan) will be saying that it is the rest of the world with the problem.
Now, at the Uruguayan camp, they are trying to make a case that Chiellini made it up, that the photographs were doctored and that the controversy is the work of the embittered English.
So he has a ban and a fine but his colleagues still refuse to admit that this incident happened, despite the appearance of another film footage, showing his attempt to munch Chiellini in the last Confederations Cup.
Brendon Rodgers has to work a miracle again with his failing striker, as he did last season, but not until October. I have not mentioned the abuse!
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