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Despite winning trophies and scoring for fun at Barcelona, Luis Suarez remains underrated

Dermot Corrigan |

January 22, 2019

THERE has been a lot of talk about Luis Suarez's goal in Sunday evening’s 3-1 La Liga win against Leganes at the Camp Nou – but almost all of it has completely missed the point, in another sign of how the Uruguayan does not get enough respect for all he contributes.

There were 19 minutes remaining and the score was at 1-1 when Suarez reacted faster than anyone else in the Leganes penalty area, after Barca substitute Lionel Messi’s 20-yard curler was parried up in the air by visiting goalkeeper Ivan Cuellar.

The ex-Liverpool player snapped into action and immediately contorted his body, showing great athleticism and power, to make sure he got there ahead of Cuellar – smashing both the ball into the net and the goalkeeper to the ground.

Barca’s players and fans immediately celebrated a crucial goal in their title push, but the officials took quite a long time to consult the VAR system and check whether a foul had been committed, before eventually signalling that the goal stood. Messi soon added another to seal a victory which keeps Ernesto Valverde’s side clear at the top of the table, five points ahead of second placed Atletico Madrid, and a full 10 ahead of Real Madrid back in third.

While most blaugrana fans and pundits focused on Messi having turned the game when entering from the bench, in the Spanish capital there was [often faked] outrage at the officials not disallowing the ball for the contact made by Suarez on Cuellar as both reached for the loose ball.

But in this case — as in the vast majority of VAR reviews in La Liga this season – the correct call was made. Two players make similar attempts to try and reach a loose ball, one gets there first and makes clean contact with the ball, and then they both collide. Even if goalkeepers do usually get extra protection from the officials, there was definitely no clear mistake made by on-pitch referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea, so his colleagues in the TV room had no case to overrule.

Missed amid all the controversy however was a really important factor, and something which is key to Suarez’s importance to this Barca side. Probably no other centre-forward in world football would have had the anticipation, athleticism and determination to make sure he got to that loose ball first, and that the ball ended up in the opposition net.

This mix of attributes is what makes the Barca number nine unique, and is not talked about as much as it should be, especially outside of the Uruguay and the Camp Nou. 32 next Thursday and with over 650 senior games in his often battered body, Suarez has rarely been 100% fit through the last few seasons. But he always shows up when most needed, with unmatched workrate and unselfish running off the ball, plus a unique ability to know what Messi best needs from his strike partner in attack.

Then there are the goals. Suarez hit 25 goals as Barca won La Liga last season, then nine in his first 13 games of 2018/19, including a hat-trick in October’s 5-1 Clasico win over Madrid. No La Liga player except Messi could match his 15 assists in the competition over the calendar year 2018. He also scored twice for Uruguay at the World Cup as his country again overperformed to make it to the quarter-finals.

But despite this Suarez was picked at number 13 in the 2018 Ballon D’Or voting, the same position as in 2017, when he contributed 29 goals and 14 assists in 35 games as Barca won La Liga. In the calendar year 2016 he was the leading goalscorer in all competitions anywhere [ahead of Ronaldo and Messi] with 40 goals, but he finished fourth in the FIFA voting, one step down from the podium.

In 2013/14, when still at Liverpool, Suarez shared the Golden Shoe for Europe’s top scorer with Ronaldo – but in 2013 he was 19th in the Ballon D’Or voting, while in 2014 [for obvious reasons, cough, Chiellini] his name he did not appear in the top 23 made public by FIFA.

Meanwhile, reaching the podium in recent years have been Antoine Griezmann [twice], Suarez’s former teammate Neymar [twice], Manuel Neuer and Franck Ribery. This year Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder Luka Modric managed to break the Messi and Ronaldo dominance of the award while arguably having a less influential individual season than Suarez.

Players who have achieved a lot less in their careers – such as Harry Kane, Robert Lewandowski and his international teammate Edinson Cavani – have regularly featured higher in the Ballon D'Or voting in recent years.

Suarez himself seems to have long accepted that – for whatever reason – his face just does not fit when it comes to talking about the very best players [not goalscorers] in the world.

“The Ballon d'Or is more to do with marketing and press than for achievements on the pitch,” he said after winning his second European Golden Shoe in 2016. “I've earned all the awards I've been given. The Golden Shoe is for scoring the most goals and there's no option for people to take that away from me. I don't have a chance [with] the Ballon d'Or because it works around marketing and I don't have that. To win it is impossible because I have the privilege of playing with the best in the world [Messi]. [But] I won’t even get on the podium.”

It is quite possible that the lack of individual recognition is what helps to drive Suarez to maintain the standards that have kept him for so long as probably the best centre-forward in the world. That he was criticised instead of praised for another crucial contribution was again mostly overlooked, even in the week of his latest birthday, is unfortunate but not really surprising.

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