On Merseyside many fans have stood resolutely behind him and sung his name after the 2-1 FA Cup win over Manchester United two weeks ago. If he can expect solidarity at Anfield, so he can expect hostility on tour, starting at Old Trafford on Feb 11. Few neutrals will have much sympathy while the partisans will relentlessly probe Suárez for a reaction, as happened when he swore at fans at Fulham before his suspension. In his first year at Liverpool he has proved himself a formidable talent but can he continue to show this positive side of his game in the face of hostility? How will Suárez cope with his pariah status?
Looking into his past, Suárez emerges as a complicated, contradictory character, a ferociously driven player who inspires loyalty in team-mates and coaches yet one who has repeatedly transgressed boundaries of acceptable behaviour. His fusion of anger and talent is both the source of his strength and his weakness.
Suárez grew up in the slums of Salto, one of seven siblings. At seven he went to live with his grandmother in Montevideo, the Uruguyan capital. When he got there he immersed himself in street football. His father Rodolfo and his brothers Paolo and Max all played to a good level. Luis was soon picked up by the Nacional academy and, even in his teens, his technical ability was allied to a resolute ruthlessness.
Mathias Cardacio, a friend from the academy, tells the story of when they won 21-0 in a youth team game. Suárez scored 17 of them. “Uruguayans never accept defeat,” Cardacio said. “But Luis is different to everyone. He never thinks he has won. He always wants more.”
The technical director of Nacional, Daniel Enriquez, said that coaches had a tough time taming Suárez. In one game, when he was still 15, he apparently lost his temper with a referee and butted him. “The referee had a broken nose and was bleeding like a cow,” Enriquez was quoted as saying of the incident. “We punished Luis heavily and told him it was the end.”
Fortunately for Suárez his older brother Paolo mediated and helped talk some sense into the errant adolescent. The acceleration of his development was remarkable and he was soon in the first team. He possessed what in Latin American football they call picardia, a cunning or craftiness needed to gull the opposition.
At 19, he scored in both legs of the championship play-off to win the Uruguayan title in 2006. A move to Europe beckoned and as his girlfriend Sofia’s family had relocated to Barcelona, the move could not come soon enough. His destination proved somewhat unexpected: the northern Dutch university town of Groningen. The club had a reputation for a brilliant scouting network but Ron Jans, Suárez’s first coach at Groningen, explained that his signing was a bit of a fluke.
“This was the most crazy transfer we ever made,” he said. “The director and the technical manager had gone to Montevideo to look at a different player. This guy didn’t impress but they went to another match and saw Suárez. After 15 minutes our director, who is an impulsive man, said he wanted him.”
Henk Veldmate, the technical director who went on that trip, says they had not been completely unaware of Suárez but that they had gone to the Nacional game rather than back to the hotel. “Everything that you see now was visible,” he said. “He scored a goal, showed he was a real winner. He was arguing with the defenders and the referee. After the game we met with him and he had a really strong personality. From that moment we knew he had what it takes to survive in Europe.”
Having been given a three-week holiday, he turned up at Groningen, in Jans’s words, “a little heavy”. He was promptly put in the reserves to get fit. “He was a real character,” Jans said. “He hated it when he found out he was going to have to play in the second team first. There was one training session when he was doing nothing. I brought the whole group together and said to Suárez in front of them: ‘You promised 100 per cent and you are doing nothing and playing like s---.’ I saw in his eyes he could kill me.
“After the session I told him to come and see me alone. The first thing I did was say ‘sorry’. He was surprised. I told him: ‘I should not have shouted at you in front of everyone. But now, you have to promise me that you’ll train 100 per cent.’ That moment helped make it a really great relationship.”
That relationship had its rocky moments. “There was one incident when he had been substituted,” recalled Jan Mennega, a former Groningen player and respected local journalist. “Jans said something to him and he said something back. Whatever it was made the coach really angry. It was raining and the coach had an umbrella so he threw it at Suárez. Then, two weeks later, Groningen were playing Vitesse Arnhem and losing 3-1 with 15 minutes to go. Suárez was incredible. He scored two goals and the team won 4-3. When Suárez scored the winner he ran to the side of the pitch and picked up an umbrella and gave it to the coach. It showed he had a sense of humour.”
While at Ajax, Suárez’s battle with officialdom was established, the cards coming as fast as the goals: in one typical spell in January 2007 he was booked three times and sent off once, but also scored four goals.
To get to Ajax, Suárez had taken Groningen to the Dutch Football Association’s arbitration committee and, while they found in Groningen’s favour, Suárez’s desire to leave brought a compromise and a €7.9?million (£6.5?million) fee was agreed. “When there is something in his head no one will get it out,” Veldmate said.
He became tremendously popular at Ajax and his goalscoring ratio went through the roof (he scored 111 in 3½ seasons). His club form was replicated with Uruguay and he was one of the outstanding players at the 2010 World Cup. Then came the quarter-final with Ghana. Saving a goalbound effort with his hand was bad enough but his wild celebrations after the ensuing penalty miss, broadcast worldwide, did not go down well in a continent seeking its first African semi-finalist at its first home World Cup.
Having had only five days’ rest after the World Cup before Ajax’s first Champions League qualifier and with the birth of his daughter in August, Suárez was tired and tetchy when he returned to Ajax. In a November game with PSV Eindhoven he got involved in a mêlée after a team-mate had been sent off. Otman Bakkal apparently stamped on Suárez’s foot, the Uruguayan responded by biting Bakkal’s shoulder.
In the aftermath the Dutch press called him the ‘Cannibal of Ajax’ and the Dutch FA banned him for seven games. Suárez uploaded an apology to his Facebook page. The then Ajax coach, Martin Jol, jokingly tried to defend his player (“maybe he was hungry”) but Ajax criticised him on their website. Suárez was apparently disappointed by the perceived lack of support and a few months later he moved to Liverpool.
The pattern recurs. His talent continues to flourish at ever higher levels — he was the player of the tournament as Uruguay won the Copa America last summer — but in those moments when competition consumes him, he seems unable to prevent himself transgressing.
Jans insists that while his actions have let him down, he is fundamentally not a malicious person. “His corazon [heart] is really great,” he said. “He is a real family man, very generous. But when he is playing he does everything to win. He needs to learn that you can do a lot to help you win but not everything.”
This loyalty is echoed by many people who have worked with Suárez, even in the face of some pretty reprehensible behaviour. The loyalty is not inexhaustible though and he must be conscious of that as he seeks to rebuild his reputation. At 25 he needs to show that he is learning from his mistakes. It will not be an easy road.
