The soul of Luis Suarez’s storied career, and life, could be distilled into the last two goals he scored for Atletico Madrid. When darkness crept in, when panic sunk in, when the title slithered down their palms, Suarez pounced from nothingness and pinched the goals that rewrote the script. Those were so Suarez, a redeemer-of-lost-cause moments.
Redeemer of lost causes — it’s a line that defines his life and career. There could be grander, classier and better footballers in his milieu, peers with silkier skills and flawless natures, but few in his era chase lost causes and turn them over with the inexhaustible gusto of Suarez. As if his life hinges on overturning every lost cause.
He was 15 and lost, when he thought his love would go unfulfilled after his girlfriend shifted to Barcelona. But the shattered boy from a disreputable suburb of Montevideo in Uruguay resolved to kick his lazy lifestyle and harnessed his footballing skills to land in Europe and get reunited with his girlfriend, now his wife and mother of two. He seemed lost again in his early Liverpool days, before he willed himself to recalibrate his game. He was deemed an antithesis to what Barcelona stood for, both in ethics and tactics, the transfer taking place soon after the biting incident involving Giorgio Chiellini in the 2014 World Cup. Yet, he not only prospered but also fostered an unshakeable bond with Lionel Messi, considered the diametric opposite of Suarez in traits. Once allies, now neighbours and best friends.
There are other character-defining moments too — even in Barcelona’s worst hour of the century, when Bayern Munich shelled them 2-8 in the quarterfinals of the 2019-20 Champions League, Suarez was still sprinting up and down the pitch, still pushing his teammates, still probing spaces and still dreaming a comeback. Even in his moments of acrimony, like the handball against Ghana in the 2010 World Cup quarterfinal, it’s his unwavering espousal of a lost cause that screamed out more than the lines of sportsmanship he blatantly crossed.
He seemed lost again, when Barcelona unapologetically, sold him to rivals Atletico Madrid, unheeding to the request of their greatest living icon, Messi. “Madness,” he fumed. Suarez left Barcelona in tears, unwanted, and unloved, as a bane and burden, an emblem of the club’s distress.
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