Luis Suarez: Newsmaker of the year 

Luis Suarez: Newsmaker of the year 

By Anthony Lopopolo

A villain makes a story, and Luis Suarez made a lot of them this year. He bit a player on the field – not for the first time! – and months later he travelled to London to accept an award. He got suspended for 10 matches and he still scored more goals than any other player in the Premier League. He thought he could leave Liverpool, only to sign a new contract with them worth £200,000 a week. He is a paradox and he is flawed, and may Luis Suarez never change.

The only constant in the life of this 26-year-old is his family. His wife Sofia met him early. She was 12. He was 15. Before that, Suarez was lazy and scared and homesick. He didn’t want to move to Montevideo as a kid, but his parents, in search of work, went away, at first leaving little Luis behind, later separating. He just wanted to play barefoot on the grass in a corner of Uruguay, far from city life. He didn’t want to train with Nacional. Only games were fun.

Sofia was there, until she wasn’t. She left for Barcelona, and Suarez joined and later married her. He would be damned if football didn’t let him. She was the first thing Suarez really wanted – before the fame and the career and the money. Now Suarez wants more. “If a move doesn’t come off for me,” he said in “Vamos Que Vamos,” a book translated months ago in The Guardian, “I want to keep trying it, and trying it and trying it. I really, really, really want to score.”

This year he’s had to try a little harder. There is little forgiveness for racists and cheats and mercenaries unless they score for your team. A lot. And even though he missed nine games, Suarez bagged 29 goals in 2013 – more than anyone else in the Premier League. He presses and passes and dribbles. Sometimes he slaloms. There is no one fixed position. There is no hesitation. Suarez guns for the goal, dashing through pairs of defenders, and he isn’t always selfish about it. He has eight assists in the league this year.

Now he speaks English and he’s learned the cliches: it’s not about him, that it’s about Liverpool. But listen to him closely. The words are spoken so softly. He doesn’t always get them right. But he tries, and stumbles, and repeats the word again. For a man who causes such a racket in the press, for man so hellbent and so demonstrative on the field, sometimes sulking and pleading and waving his hands about, he is in civies a pretty quiet person.

He is open about his problems. It’s why he did not appeal the ban for biting Chelsea’s Barnislav Ivanovic. It’s why he we wants to thank the fans. Suarez knew he had become a rebel again. “Everyone knows my last year has not been really good, with my problems,” he said after the awards gala in a suit and a bow tie. “But after that I forgot everything and tried my best on the pitch.”

At one point, Suarez thought the media had conspired against him, inventing stories about him, the richest character in the game. The stories weren’t all false: there was the time he argued with Liverpool to let him go and the times he dove inside the box. The game shapes these players. For Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s the same thing. He has done great things for charities, and he donates blood and millions of dollars, but sometimes he dives, and that’s what people remember.

Suarez is not trying to change. He wants to be better. He spends time with the team’s psychologist. He wants to be a good dad. Before a game this season, Suarez paraded his newborn son on the field. After every goal, he kisses a spot on his wrist with the name of his daughter, Delfina, written across. She’s even starting to speak like a Scouser, and Suarez doesn’t always understand what she’s saying. Maybe Liverpool has had a bigger impact on Luis Suarez than he has had on the club and the city itself.

And let’s hope he stays just as he is. He is one of the greatest players in the game but an even greater story. “I choose to believe that the spirit of the game smiles on Luis Suarez because the spirit of the game is a mischievous f***er who rewards cunning and skill and desire over sportsmanship,” writes George Quraishi in Howler magazine. “If he’s a cheat, then catch him cheating. If he’s a racist, then punish him for saying stupid s***. I won’t complain when Suarez falls. But please let me keep watching him play.”

Then there are the rest. These aren’t necessarily better stories but some are better players. And yet we write so much about them. So, as they do with the ball, let’s simplify things. There is no master list that confirms for certain which are the best footballers, but we have an idea. Alas: another top 10, chronicling each player in a tweet-sized portion:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo

Averages more than a goal per game. Scored 14 in the Champions League and nine in the group stage – both records. Equaled Pauleta as top scorer for Portugal with 47.

2. Lionel Messi

Bedeviled by the hamstring. Missed 14 games. Subbed off more times this season than the past two seasons combined. Still scored 39 times for Barcelona all year.  

3. Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Doesn’t need the Ballon d’Or to know he’s the best. Free kicks loaded with gunpowder. Tenth player in Champions League history to score four goals in one game.

4. Franck Ribery

Won five trophies. Ballon d’Or finalist. Twenty-three assists for club and country in 2013. Finally starting to work for the team. Dribbles the ball better than any other player.

5. Thiago Silva

The modern defender. Starts the attack from the back. Unafraid to eat up space and push forward. Not one for the reckless tackle. Completes close to 90% of his passes.

6. Yaya Toure

Robust, physical and stable. A big man with great feet. The play goes through him, as if it needs his blessing. Always ready to blast a free kick into the upper 90.

7. Philipp Lahm

Transformed into a holding midfielder but still the best left-back in the game. Kick-starts the play. Patient with the ball. Primary distributor. Pep Guardiola’s pet project.

8. Sergio Aguero

One of the little guys who can play big. Punishes the ball. Doesn’t run an extra step. Turns sharply. Twenty-seven goals for Manchester City this year.

9. Luis Suarez

Has great appetite to score. Always moving. Prolific. Plays with such certainty. Sees steps ahead. Yet only scored twice against England’s top four clubs in 2013.

10. Gareth Bale

Worth €91-million to Real Madrid. Never quits running. Scored his first hat-trick with the club in fewer games than Ronaldo did. Regularly won games for Tottenham.

This piece was written by Anthony Lopopolo, a Senior Writer for AFR. Comments below please.