Its a long read, but its 10 minutes well spent. Amzing piece by an Englishman living in Uruguay
This is the story of a boy from Salto, Uruguayâs second city: who grew up in poverty, yet went on to become his countryâs most famous, instantly recognisable export. And of the football club he now stars for: an illustrious, world famous club which under-achieved for so long, yet is now on the verge of one of its greatest, most emotional triumphs. The story of Luis Alberto Suarez Diaz; and Liverpool Football Club.
When Liverpool last won the English league Championship â their eleventh in 18 years, and eighteenth in total â Suarez was only 3 years old. Their dominance of English football appeared inevitable, relentless; just as the slow, gradual, depressing decline of Uruguayan football seemed likewise. The national team was about to embark on a World Cup Finals in Italy where, weighed down by history and absurd levels of expectation, it under-performed; but the Reds, little though we knew it at the time, were also about to enter a long period in the relative wilderness.
1989/90. Liverpoolâs last Champions.
Since then, in very different ways, both Liverpool FC and Luis Suarez have known huge, crushing levels of adversity â yet both have come through. And this season, as they have flowered in tandem, wowing the world with the beauty of their football, both are now set for a truly extraordinary triumph: which is already resonating here in Uruguay almost as much as on Merseyside itself.
To understand the success which both Liverpool and the man they affectionately call Luisito are now enjoying, it is necessary to understand the pasts of both. Chequered, complex, emotional; yet critical to where both now find themselves, and the merging of the two into one unstoppable force. After all, we are all products of our past, our unique environments, the complex forces which shape us; and in many cases, it drives us forwards. In the case of this football club and this footballer, it can even play a part in shaping some truly remarkable things.
A little over a year before Liverpoolâs last title win, they met Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, Sheffield. What followed was a tragedy the details of which are known to almost all football fans in England; but not, perhaps, to many Uruguayans. As a result of a combination of horrific â most believe, criminal â levels of police incompetence; negligence on the part of the emergency services; and the wanton, disgraceful neglect of both the English footballing authorities and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, 96 Liverpool fans â men, women and children â were crushed to death in horrifically over-crowded terraces behind the goal at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, and against perimeter fences erected earlier in the decade to prevent possible hooliganism.
The Hillsborough Memorial at Anfield
*SNIP* Edited for compliance. :wave
That is the backdrop against which Liverpool FC now find themselves. It is a story of monumental, massively against the odds determination and endurance, in which the fight for justice has been taken right to the heart of the British establishment. And it is also a story the force of which is now propelling their beloved football team forwards: towards the most emotional of triumphs in this 25th anniversary year.
Of course, nothing experienced by any mere footballer compares on the remotest level imaginable to the torment of those families over the last 25 years. Suarez has encountered huge adversity in his life â but never tragedy such as this. To compare would be to trivialise in the most grotesque fashion conceivable; needless to add, that is not the intention of this article in any way.
The difficulties which Suarez did experience, though, are often greatly underestimated; and have certainly played a huge part in creating the person he is today. Although relatively little is known about his childhood, it is safe to conclude that it was difficult; even at times, highly traumatic. Suarez was born into a poor family, as the middle child of seven; and in Salto, as elsewhere throughout Uruguay, the poor and rich rarely mix. Enmity tends to result instead: the poor finding themselves on the wrong end of taunts, stereotypes, ignorance and labels. That Suarez is of mixed race probably made the insults he no doubt will have experienced even more difficult to deal with.
So although Suarez shared his city of birth with his celebrated international teammate, Edinson Cavani, there any similarities ended. Cavani was born into a wealthy family, and went on to be well educated; Suarez, on the other hand, moved to Montevideo aged 7, and his parents separated when he was just 9 years old.
At this point, I feel it necessary to underscore something. Iâve lived in this country for over two years now, and would probably be considered upper-middle class by Uruguayan standards. Yet even for people such as myself, it is a major struggle to make ends meet each month. The reality for those less fortunate is often a completely different matter.
Some of the poverty in Montevideo, and in the interior, has to be seen to be believed; and the breathtaking levels of ignorance displayed by many among the upper classes towards the poor represent one of the greatest sadnesses of this country. The difference in life chances between someone born rich, and someone born poor, is enormous: with education (the quality of which at state level leaves massive amounts to be desired) the largest reason for this.
This was the context in which Suarez spent his vital formative years. The odds against him making a success of his life were huge; the odds against him becoming his countryâs greatest ever success story, bar none, astronomical. Aged 11, he was offered a place at the prestigious national youth training camp at La Plata, Argentina; but had to turn it down, as he did not even have the money to buy a pair of shoes.
It should scarcely be a surprise, then, that this prodigiously gifted, ultra-competitive adolescent began to show signs of going off the rails. After developing his footballing skills on the Montevidean streets, he was sent off for headbutting a referee at age 15; and began to drink too much too. After being caught drinking and partying by his youth team coach at Nacional, he was issued an ultimatum: shape up, or ship out.
This seems to have represented a vital turning point in young Luisâ life; but when he was only 18, like so many other Uruguayans who fled the countryâs enormous economic problems around that time, Sofia Balbi, his childhood sweetheart, moved to Barcelona. Suarez maintained a long distance relationship with her for a year; then leapt at the chance to be closer to her as Groningen, of Holland, signed him from Nacional.
Now, this poorly educated young man, who had endured a horribly challenging, often painful childhood, arrived in a foreign continent: unable to speak either Dutch or English. Here, the extraordinary qualities of tenacity and determination, which had already taken him infinitely further than any of his peers from back home, would come to the fore.
At this stage, again I wish to interject an anecdote. When I arrived in Uruguay, the question at the forefront of my mind was: how can such a tiny country have achieved so miraculously much in the worldâs most popular sport; and above all, how has it produced so many top footballers?
The answer lies both in how tough it is for so many to survive here, and in a resulting desire to succeed â above all, to win â which Iâve never seen paralleled anywhere else amongst so many. Uruguayans are desperate to win at anything, absolutely anything: meaning that when, as an English teacher, I organise the most trivial, meaningless word game amongst 13 or 14 year old students, the frantic desire of them all to win â and in the process, badmouth their classmates, complain about unfairness on my part as the adjudicator, or even to cheat themselves â has to be seen to be believed.
This story makes Uruguayans sound almost demonic in a way; but theyâre anything but. It is, in truth, a highly amusing phenomenon to witness â and after the game has concluded, everyone is friends again. Because the other side to Uruguayans â again, one very much shared by Suarez, a true representative of his people â is how humble and fraternal so many are.
In Holland, Suarez summoned up all his ferociously competitive instincts and desire to better himself: throwing himself into learning Dutch as quickly as he could, and forcing himself into Groningenâs first team; then within a year, securing a move to Ajax, the countryâs largest, most famous club. By 2007, Oscar Tabarez was calling him up for the national team too.
Yet as his star continued to rise, so controversy began to engulf him; indeed, in many ways, it has never left him since. From the famous handball on the line at the World Cup â the international reaction to which was absurd in its level of double standards and hypocrisy, and seemed to centre more than anything on his bare-faced honesty in celebrating Asamoah Gyanâs subsequent penalty miss, which miraculously kept his country in the tournament â to being banned by the Dutch Football Association for 7 matches for biting Otman Bakal of PSV on the shoulder, Suarez continued to be celebrated by his compatriots back home; but cut an increasingly lonely, troubled, divisive figure in Europe.
It is not difficult to surmise here that the effects of his troubled childhood and poor education were beginning to surface; one might even suggest that a good deal of this represented the flipside of the ultra-competitive qualities with which he had already beaten the odds to such a degree.
To be sure, it was certainly related to the culture of viveza criolla (craftiness and cunning) which embodies Rioplatense football; and which in spirit and style of play, Suarez often resembles the greatest of them all: Diego Maradona. In any case, such were the difficulties he had endured (and for that matter, created for himself), it may have come as a blessed relief when Liverpool, now under new ownership, bought him for 26.5m euros in January 2011.
Like Suarez, the Reds had been through plenty of trials and tribulations over the preceding two decades; including plenty not associated with the fall-out from Hillsborough. At the time of the tragedy in Sheffield, Liverpoolâs hegemony over English football had appeared total: with a 5-0 thrashing of Brian Cloughâs Forest the previous year representing the crowning glory of a whole generation of dominance: admired the length and breadth of Europe.
Yet many believe that the emotional impact of what happened â with manager, Kenny Dalglish, and many of his players enormously affected, taking considerable time out to counsel the grieving, the bereft â played its own sad part in the clubâs subsequent decline.
The 1989 league title was lost in the final seconds of the season; unheralded Crystal Palace shocked the men from Anfield and further diminished their aura of invincibility in the FA Cup semi-final the following year; Dalglish, entirely understandably, seemed unable to find the energy to rebuild anew. Liverpool faced a serious, sustained challenge from George Grahamâs revitalised Arsenal; and crucially, when an exhausted Dalglish resigned in 1991, botched his replacement completely. Recruited from Rangers, Graeme Souness would dismantle the legacy of Shankly, Paisley and Fagan; sign a collection of misfits nowhere near up to the challenge of keeping the club at the top; and find his side playing increasingly helpless catch-up to a speeding red blur elsewhere in the North-West.
Graeme Souness proved a disastrous choice as Kenny Dalglishâs successor
Under the guidance of Alex Ferguson, perhaps the greatest football manager who ever lived, Manchester United ended a 26 year long title drought, and began their own two decade long period of hegemony â to which their great, historic rivals invariably had no answer.
In effect, English football itself had died at Hillsborough. It was now reborn as something else, something entirely different. Satellite television ruled the roost; the sport becoming increasingly commercialised and, to be frank, utterly unrecognisable. Vast swathes of money poured into English football: but while United were able to take full advantage of this, Liverpool, with their smaller stadium and â at the time â considerably more limited global reach, could not.
Occasionally, opportunities did present themselves: yet Roy Evansâ youthful side of 1996/7 never convinced, above all defensively, somehow contriving to finish 4th in a two horse race; the serious illness which ruled Gerard
Houllier out for fully 5 months perhaps made the difference between the title and the runners-up spot in 2001/2 (albeit, assistant Phil Thompson performed a manful job in his absence); a succession of draws early in the New Year cost Rafael Benitezâ team the chance of taking United to the wire in 2008/9.
In any case: throughout this time, Liverpool never entered any season as likely Champions, or even as probable top 2 finishers. There was always something clearly missing. Evansâ team was frequently soft; Houllierâs horribly one-dimensional; and what Benitez could do in Europe â never more so than in that unforgettable Champions League triumph of 2005 â he seemed unable to replicate at home.
What Rafael Benitez could do in Europe, he couldnât in England
Indeed, the efforts of 2008/9 really represented considerable over-achievement given the depth of squad and wage bill at his disposal. Like so many of his predecessors, Rafa was hamstrung by the simple reality of not having the means to sign enough truly high quality players on a regular basis: a privilege reserved for United, Chelsea, and more latterly, Manchester City. Spreading the money thinly on quantity, rather than thickly on quality, was never going to make the difference.
Eventually, Benitez ran out of ideas; and the club ran so far aground off the pitch under its inept owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, that its very existence came into question. Although they would ultimately be replaced by the enormously impressive Fenway Sports Group (FSG) â which had already guided another famous sporting team in red, the Boston Red Sox, to the end of a long Championship drought, and knew its business to an extent that even many Liverpool fans greatly underestimated â the club itself appeared stranded: out of the Champions League for 5 years, with a squad nowhere near good enough to challenge, and written off as a relic of the past by observers who, once more, should have known better.
Into this breach stepped two men. First Suarez, who despite now playing for one of Europeâs great clubs, found himself surrounded by teammates all but one of whom (the incomparable, talismanic Steven Gerrard) were quite laughably his inferior; then most significantly of all, Brendan Rodgers, appointed manager in June 2012, a little over 16 months after Suarezâ arrival.
Rodgers, who would go on to prove himself the best, most visionary manager to emerge from the British Isles in decades, had learnt his trade as Chelseaâs youth team coach, then reserve team manager, under Jose Mourinho. Yet his ideas were what set him apart; indeed, what made him so different from his mentor too. Learning a huge amount from his first two jobs in management with Watford and especially Reading, Rodgers took Swansea City into the Premier League and kept them there with a style of play which was positively continental: cerebral, possession based, controlled. This approach was almost unprecedented amongst the English leagueâs leading clubs, let alone its smaller ones: to watch Rodgersâ Swansea was to watch a genuine breath of fresh air.
More than that, though, he is a gentle, compassionate, dignified man: whose qualities of empathy and perspicacity have been paramount in his success. Watching his first press conference as Liverpool manager, I was immediately struck by how well he appeared to understand the club, how in tune he seemed with its followers; and his very emotional intelligence would prove key in how he went on to handle its finest player.
For in the interim, Suarez had been involved in his greatest controversy of all, and become persona non grata in English football. His supporters defended him; his critics vilified him. It is not the intention of this article to once more recapitulate the events surrounding the Evra affair; goodness knows, it has been done to death not only on these pages, but everywhere else besides. Instead, the point lies in how Rodgers was able to rehabilitate Suarez: coaxing his best form out of him, and beginning to redeem his tattered reputation.
Suarez, Evra⌠You know the rest
At which point, of course, came another of those incidents; another biting incident, indeed, this time involving Branko Ivanovic of Chelsea. Of all the many contretemps Suarez has been part of over the years, this one seemed most inexplicable, most difficult to understand or defend; even many of his own countrymen briefly turned against him. Having once more pressed hard on the self-destruct button, his career in England appeared finished: surely, for his own sake, he required both urgent anger management classes, and a move to a new country in order to make a fresh start?
That move â to a new club, if not a new country â almost happened last summer, with Suarez initially infuriated at Liverpoolâs apparent breach of faith. Indeed, whisper it, but in their failure to honour the buy-out clause in his contract and allow him to join Arsenal, the Anfield club even appear to have acted illegally.
Think of it. By this point, Suarez had spent two and a half years playing for a failing club out of the Champions League; and on the pitch, had become a pantomime hate figure to millions. Last summer, few observers anywhere expected Liverpool to cast off 23 years of domestic failure and catapult themselves into league title contention; Suarez felt he was wasting the best years of his career.
That is the context against which Rodgers somehow persuaded him to recommit his energies and focus; and Suarez, against all expectation, was dramatically reborn. Now, a side which had finished only 7th last season, and had only the 5th largest wage bill in England, suddenly began to produce performances of style and verve.
The promise of the latter stages of 2012/13, during which Rodgers had overseen a complete revolution in style of play, and almost unnoticed, had yielded 27 goals in Liverpoolâs final 12 games (10 in the final 4 games even without Suarez), now flowered into true consistency. Where two years previously, Suarez often appeared to have a look on his face of âdo I have to do EVERYTHING by myself?â, now he trusted in and helped develop his teammates. Burgeoning young talents such as Daniel Sturridge or Raheem Sterling; marvellously intuitive playmakers such as Philippe Coutinho; unsung heroes such as Jon Flanagan; and an almost impossibly transformed Jordan Henderson.
And Luisito would also benefit enormously from the colossal, almost beyond words leadership skills of Gerrard: the celebrated one club man and hero of Istanbul, who under Rodgersâ wise aegis, at last discovered the positional discipline and coolness of head to accompany his enormous gifts. Table toppers at Christmas, the Reds went on to thrash Everton and Arsenal in successive home games. This was clearly no false dawn at Anfield.
At this point, most observers still considered that Liverpoolâs fragile, at times almost non-existent defence and obvious shallowness of squad would be bound to tell in a contest with the plutocratic, oil rich oligarchies of Manchester City and Chelsea: both under the watch of two of the finest managers in the world. Merely sealing a top 4 place and long overdue return to the Champions League was, or so many of the so-called experts believed, the limit of Liverpoolâs capabilities; but what nobody anywhere (except, perhaps, Rodgers and his young musketeers) anticipated was that they would actually raise things to another level again.
Famously, John W. Henry and FSG had turned 86 years of sporting history on its head by coming back from 3-0 down to shock the hated New York Yankees in their own house, and go on to clinch the first of what has since become three World Series titles for the Red Sox. Now, his football team would enter the home of its most hated, fiercest rivals, Manchester United: and dramatically accelerate the implosion of their 20 year long Empire by humiliating them, three goals to nil.
Manchester United 0-3 Liverpool. The tables had truly been turned.
That, I believe, was the day neutrals began to wake up and wonder âcould Liverpool actually do the unthinkable, and win the whole thing?â The gulf between the two sides was so vast; the pace and inventiveness of the Anfield menâs football, so thrilling, that it seemed more a case of âwell, why not?â
And since then, something extraordinary has happened: unpredecented in my experience of modern English football. Neutrals across the country have begun willing Liverpool on to an astonishing league title; the symbiosis between the team â increasingly resembling a force of nature â and its adoring public has become ever closer, ever more palpable; even Suarez himself is becoming revered by fans of other clubs. Whisper it, but actually loved by them too.
Iâm 35, and have been watching English title races for a quarter of a century. In that entire time, Iâve never known a Championship-chasing side which was emotional merely to watch, never mind anything else; but Liverpool are. Iâve never known a Championship-chasing side which played with such a palpable sense of enjoyment either: rather than be cowed by the prospect of ending a 24 year long drought, the Redsâ young tyros have been inspired.
This is football. Have fun. Express yourselves. Go out there and embrace the challenge â because this is the greatest time in your lives.
As for the reaction here in Uruguay? My friend and colleague on these pages, Foxfang4, was not exaggerating: it is exactly as he explained a few days ago. Uruguayan club football has been undergoing a serious crisis in recent months; fans in their legions are switching off from PeĂąarol and Nacionalâs re-creation of two bald men fighting over a comb, and getting behind a club from thousands of miles away instead.
And thatâs not just because of Suarez: Uruguayan footballâs first genuine global icon. Itâs also because, in the immense colour and passion of their supporters â never better demonstrated than in a rendition of Youâll Never Walk Alone before the Manchester City game last weekend to make the hair stand on end â Liverpool donât actually seem that English. As one of my students put it to me the other day: âTheyâre emotional. Theyâre fanatical. Theyâre like a Latin club!â
Thus does Suarez fit perfectly into a city quite unlike any other in England; whose people are frequently the very opposite of the detached, stilted characterisation so often associated with the UK. Liverpool is different, and so is its most celebrated football club; this, again, is something which wide-eyed Uruguayans have remarked upon with excitement and childlike awe.
More than that: until extremely recently, this was a country which struggled for recognition like very few others. Uruguayans are used to being greeted with blank looks when overseas and asked where theyâre from; but thanks a little to Jose Mujica, a lot to Luis Suarez, that is finally changing. Liverpool have taken this countryâs national hero to their hearts; Uruguayans are repaying the compliment.
None of this is to say that Suarez wonât continue to divide opinion and attract ire. Of course he will. Last weekend against City, he appeared dangerously close to a serious sense of humour breakdown; and yesterday, videos spread like wildfire, chastising him for apparently feigning injury at Carrow Road. Yet what his critics failed to notice was that he had, actually, been badly hurt by a dangerous challenge: close-ups revealing blood just below the knee, as he spent the next 10 to 15 minutes in visible pain.
The reason he got back up so quickly after being fouled? The determination and will to win which Iâve repeatedly referred to in this piece. That is the essence of Suarez: no doubt, sometimes it goes too far â occasionally, far too far â but those qualities are what have taken him such a phenomenally long way in the first place. To the point whereby he has been, by a distance, the outstanding player in English football this season; is now one of the three leading footballers on the planet (at this moment, perhaps even the best); and is now so close to complete redemption that Evra, of all people, has voted for him as Player of the Year: an award which he will surely win.
Nothing could better sum up the turnaround in Luis Suarezâ career at Anfield: so remarkable, it is even out-doing its closest parallel of Eric Cantona at United post-Matthew Simmons and Selhurst Park. A hitherto reviled figure, plainly uncomfortable in his own skin in the months following the Evra affair, is now blissfully happy in his personal life; able to laugh at himself â as he did in a Uruguayan advertisement last summer which maybe first presaged the change in him; has improved his English by a quite staggering extent; and as he has already been for La Celeste for many years, is a hugely unselfish player and relentlessly hard worker for his club.
Against Tottenham 3 weeks ago, when commentators wondered if he mightâve got the final touch to the Redsâ fourth goal, Suarez pointed at his teammate, Henderson; who had earlier missed an excellent chance. This was no time for individual greed; the team came first. In footballing terms, this was the moment that confirmed Luis Suarezâ metamorphosis from a boy into a man.
Itâs when we mention Henderson, though â the vital, often unheralded cog which has made the wheel turn beautifully all season â that it becomes necessary to supply some final, much needed words of caution. For Liverpoolâs 3-2 win at Norwich City, which plunged the English side I support deeper into the relegation mire, exposed just how dependent they have become on the midfielder: suspended for the next two matches as well as yesterdayâs.
Without Henderson, they looked unusually shaky, even genuinely fragile; and unlike Norwichâs open, often naive approach, the Redsâ next two opponents can be expected to be streetwise and stuffy in equal measure. Mourinho and Chelseaâs bus parking capabilities need no introduction, nor the tendency of the brooding Portuguese to confound his critics in the biggest of contests; but the banana skin that awaits after that, away to a Crystal Palace side brilliantly marshalled by Tony Pulis, which has beaten both Chelsea and Everton in recent weeks, fills this observer with grim premonitions.
If Liverpool were to slip up, Manchester City, written off after their draw with Sunderland in midweek â a night when the apparent Uruguayan takeover of the English Premier League gained new ground, and suggested that Gustavo Poyet may yet work a genuine miracle â may yet be revived: exactly in the same manner as two seasons ago. So much will depend on the attitude of the ever mercurial City; a great deal regarding which can be gleaned from their match at home to West Bromwich Albion tonight.
If City do anything other than win, Liverpool will have at least eight fingers on a first league title in 24 long years; but should, as must be anticipated, they defeat the struggling Baggies, this astounding title race â the greatest, most unpredictable, most wildly exciting in England in living memory â may yet be in for several more twists and turns.
Fortunately, no-one will know better than Suarez â whose compatriotsâ mentality of âwe must just focus on the next matchâ is a constant theme in this country, and puts much of English football to shame â that nothing has been won yet. One final push still remains. But after this most remarkable of seasons, and with something truly intangible propelling Rodgersâ side forwards, the likelihood must be that Merseyside is about to experience its most joyous, emotional outpouring of modern times.
Thanks in no small part to the efforts of a humble boy from Salto, Liverpool Football Clubâs present may finally be about to catch up with its famous, evocative past.
http://www.lacelesteblog.com/?p=10599
