Explosive, combative and with an innate sense of goal, but also controversial because of his behavior on the field, Luis Suarez, who announced his international retirement on Monday, embodies better than anyone the football of his country, Uruguay.
Suarez, 37, is the Celeste’s all-time leading scorer with 69 goals in 142 games. But he’s also the man who bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini in the middle of a match at the 2014 World Cup.
He is also the player who qualified Uruguay for the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup thanks to an act of pure unsportsmanlike behaviour: a handball save on a header at close range, punished with a red card but ultimately paid off because the Ghanaians missed the penalty awarded and then lost on penalties.
Suarez has become the most popular footballer in the small South American country, twice world champion, where “garra”, or anger, has been elevated to the rank of national value.
“On the pitch, I had the merit of never giving up, of never giving up on a ball and even of warming up when I lost,” he once confided to Spanish radio Onda Cero.
Born in Salto in 1987, like his much wiser teammate Edinson Cavani, Luis Alberto Suarez made his mark by overcoming a difficult childhood in a large and impoverished family.
Little Luis is raised by his mother, a cleaning lady, and his grandparents. He divides his time between football and a small job as a parking attendant. His father, a former soldier, divorces early and distances himself from the family.
“If I hadn’t been raised like that, I wouldn’t have been able to get by. (…) Going to Argentina, at the time, in a van, doing 25 or 26 hours (on the road) to go to a football tournament at 12 years old, I had to put up with it because I had no other means,” remembers the Uruguayan.
– Three bites –
“Luisito” began his career in the first division in 2005, at the age of 17, at Nacional de Montevideo. Transferred at 19 to the Netherlands, he learned the ropes at Groningen and then exploded at Ajax Amsterdam (111 goals in 159 matches). A Liverpool player from 2011, he earned the nickname “Pistolero” for his two-fingered celebration and his eye for goal, even from improbable angles.
He also won the Copa América, his only title with the national team, where he was named best player with his four goals.
But the former turbulent teenager has lost his cool several times. Before the Chiellini affair, which earned him a suspension of several months, he had already bitten two opponents: Otman Bakkal in 2010 in the Dutch championship, and Branislav Ivanovic in 2013 in the Premier League.
Still in the Premier League, he was also fined £40,000 and suspended for eight matches in 2011 for racist abuse against Frenchman Patrice Evra, then at Manchester United, facts which he has always denied.
He nevertheless signed with FC Barcelona in the summer of 2014 and promised to improve by consulting “suitable professionals” to control his temperament.
At FC Barcelona, alongside his captain and friend Lionel Messi, he further improved the attack of one of the best clubs in the world and filled his cupboard with numerous trophies, including four Spanish championships and a Champions League in 2015.
“He is a constant headache for the opponent, you never know when he might appear. His perseverance makes him a safe bet,” summed up his former coach at Barça, Ernesto Valverde.
And his sulphurous reputation is smoothing over. The Uruguayan’s entourage portrays him as a generous doting father with his three sons, whom he had with his teenage sweetheart Sofia.
Since his arrival in Barcelona in 2014, until his transfer to Atletico Madrid of “Cholo” Simeone in 2020, he only received one red card… and no longer bit anyone, even if he continued to dive more often than not in the area. With 21 goals, he helped the Madrid team win the 2020-2021 Spanish league title.
After a brief return to Nacional de Montevideo in 2022, a stint at Porto Alegre in 2023 and then at Inter Miami this year, with still enough fuel to score goals, complete the rich career of the “Pistolero”.
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