Tag Archives: Suarez

Proud Dad Suárez Bites Back at the Double as Liverpool Resume Premier Challenge – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 30/09/2013 | 1 comment

Suárez dedicates goal to new baby son Benja

The footballer so many love to hate, nasty Suárez, “racist” Suárez, mad-dog Suárez, call him what you like (and the sanctimonious tendency among football fans need no undue persuasion) showed a soft and squishy side to his nature after his comeback goal on Sunday, the first of a brace which helped resurgent Liverpool dispatch rock-bottom Sunderland. After tapping the ball into the Wearsiders’ net to make the score 2-0 to the Reds, Luis Suárez raised his Liverpool top to reveal an undershirt with the legend “Welcome Benja” inscribed thereon; a warm “Hello, son” to his new baby boy, born last Thursday.

It’s a heart-warming tale, but nevertheless many will maintain the set of their lips in a thin, disapproving line. Bad boy Luis has been a sinner many times since his entrance into English football, but it’s also the case that he’s provided many illuminating moments of skill amounting to genius. The more tolerant in the football family might find it in their forgiving natures to concede that the balance is marginally on the credit side of the ledger. Though his sins are like scarlet, or at least like a Liverpool red, yet shall they be as white as snow. Or so the Good Book sort of says.

It was the striking partner of Suárez who came closest to “sinner” status at the Stadium of Light, the ball flying in for Liverpool’s opener, not as intended off Daniel Sturridge’s head, but rather off the top of his arm. It was deemed an accidental contact, the goal stood and Liverpool were on their way to a victory that became less comfortable the longer the match went on. Sturridge it was who provided the cross for the second goal, darting into a half yard of space near the goal-line to spear a low cross which Suárez, Johnny-on-the-spot, buried with ease. Sunderland had contributed plenty of effort to the first half, playing a high pressing game, and the two incisions which saw them behind at the interval were perhaps slightly rough justice.

In the second half, Sunderland’s hard work continued and eventually earned them a glimmer of hope when ex-Black Cat Simon Mignolet in the Liverpool goal could only parry a stinging shot from outside the area. Emanuele Giaccherini snapped up the resulting rebound chance with glee and Sunderland were back in business. The home side were reinvigorated by the breakthrough, as tends to be the case and a new purpose showed in their attacking play. Liverpool were pressed back for a spell and endured their most worrying period of the match, until a swift break saw Sturridge in space on the left, enabling him to pull the ball back from the byline for that man Suárez to apply a deadly finish and wrap the proceedings up at 3-1.

Of the main title contenders, it’s been a good weekend for Arsenal and Liverpool, not so good for Spurs and Chelsea and pretty disastrous for Manchester City. Unbeaten Everton still lurk around unbeaten, threatening to gatecrash the elite pack. It promises to be a tight race for the honours at the top of the Premier League – and Liverpool, with Suárez ebullient, seem determined to have a big say right to the end, just as in the old days. For managerless Sunderland, rooted to the top-flight basement with just one solitary point to show for the season so far, the future looks a whole lot bleaker.

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Tagged Football, Liverpool FC, Premier League, soccer, Suarez, Sunderland Fc

Can Liverpool’s Suarez “Do a Cantona” on Comeback Against Man U? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 17/09/2013 | Leave a comment

Sic ’em, Suarez!

There was a feeling of inevitability all those years ago when Eric Cantona, enfant terrible and martial arts amateur extraordinaire, returned from his lengthy FA-imposed ban for being the true incarnation of “The Shit Who Hit The Fan”, to face the old enemies of Man U. Liverpool were the visitors, before an expectant crowd of Devon day-trippers at the Theatre of Hollow Myths. The script was written, and although the scousers aimed to poop Eric’s party by taking the lead, the man from Marseilles had the last laugh, ensuring a draw for his side with – you’ve guessed it – a penalty.

All of that was a long, long time ago – but these old rivals have memories like elephants (and backsides to match, for many of them). So Cantona’s ban, comeback and celebratory strike will not have been forgotten by fans of either side. Even though the personnel will be almost entirely different, give or take a superannuated Ryan Giggs, there will be many who might wonder if that old script might not be taken out and dusted off. Man U host Liverpool in the League Cup next week. Suarez is available for the first time since being banned for biting without due care and attention. He’d love to take a chunk out of Man U’s season – wouldn’t he just. Could it really, actually happen?

Think of it: Suarez is the man that the Man U faithful love to hate after his run-in with their own less-than-likable Patrice Evra – and the subsequent Handshakegate Scandal. All very petty and handbags of course, as matters relating to bruised Man U egos tend to be. But these things matter when you have a close rivalry based on mutual antipathy between Merseyside and, erm, most of the South of England. Can Suarez, like Cantona so many years before, make his long-awaited comeback from durance vile, in the media glare – and, again like Cantona, stuff it up a hated enemy?

There would be such a neat reciprocity about it, if it actually came to pass. How funny, how satisfactory it would be. Cantona made his mark at the Liverpool fans’ end of the Theatre of Hollow Myths – could Suarez possibly end up laughing in the faces of the Stretford End?

I have a great respect for football omens and fate in general. It’s tempting to look up the odds against Liverpool to win 2-1, Suarez to score at any time. Anything above 10-1 might just tempt me to have a punt on that. Come on, Liverpool!!

Evra Out-Chomps Suarez in the Bad Taste Stakes

Posted on 26/04/2013 | Leave a comment

Stupid Boy

It was predictable, I suppose, that Man U would find time in celebrating their hollow title triumph to have a pop at the enemy down the other end of the East Lancs road. It’s in their DNA to crow instead of celebrating with dignity as truly great clubs do – and so inevitably the evening couldn’t go by without some reference to the latest glitch from Liverpool’s Luis Suarez. Liverpool are a problem for Man U. They oozed class to utterly out-perform all the competition back when that competition was a lot broader-based than it is today. They’ve still got more European Cups. For a club so obsessed with size and success, so insecure in the face of genuine rivalry, it stings the Trafford-based giants that a relatively close neighbour has been so historically successful. Man U don’t take that sort of thing kindly, and Ferguson’s poisonous hatred of Liverpool has trickled down like escaping acid through the fabric of his club, leaving the suppurating sores of bitter envy at all levels.

Even given this long-standing hatred of Liverpool, born of the envy and insecurity that riddles Old Trafford, the display on Monday evening of the not-exactly-admirable defender Evra was pushing hard at the far boundaries of decency and good taste. A joke “severed limb” was thrown onto the pitch from the jubilant home fans – this is the kind of thing Man U fans are rather prone to, with a record of similar perversions of class and comportment many times in the past. They tend to squeal loud and long though if anyone offers them like treatment; such is the one-way street of the Man U supporters’ moral code.

So there’s this silly toy on the pitch and – no doubt seeking to please and impress his adoring fans, Evra had to pick it up and mime having a bite out of it. It’s not a particularly edifying image, but of course Evra and Suarez are not exactly bosom buddies. Be that as it may, such a very unsubtle reference to the hot-headed and idiotic actions of the Uruguayan a couple of days previously at Anfield was – to say the least – unhelpful and unwelcome. Suarez has stupidly offered himself as a target yet again for a press and public that has been eager to condemn him ever since his dispute with Evra, a situation in which the Frenchman shared a lot of any blame going. But Suarez has been hunted ever since, any slip highlighted, most of the praise that his sparkling play deserves only grudgingly meted out.

The point of all this is, of course, that the actions of Suarez, stupid and needless though they may be, ARE invariably taken in the heat of the moment, when he is in the middle of some competitive vortex on the field. Evra, on the other hand was relaxed and celebrating, high on the moment of triumph no doubt, but not caught up in the white heat of conflict. And yet he still chose to do this tasteless thing, in cold blood, and subject us all to the spectacle of his gloating mug on the back pages, glorying in the opportunity to heap further ridicule on a fellow professional. An unpleasant and despicable individual, as well as being not one tenth the player that Suarez undeniably is, as he’s always proving.

It always seems to be Man U that are highlighted indulging in unpleasant schoolboy skits like this. They used to have a reputation for class and impeccable conduct, even under the slightly shady rule of the Edwards family. That good reputation is long gone. The modern tendency to revel in the misfortunes and dilemmas of others seems bred into them by their coarse and choleric manager, a man who values the siege complex and nurtures this out of the hate his teams’ conduct inspires. Suarez has – probably rightly – copped a long ban for his daft action, which gained him nothing and certainly reflected ill on the game. His conduct was inexcusable, but for a hothead like Suarez there are always reasons, and it seems that every now and again, he will simply run out of self-control. It’s in his temperamental and hot-blooded nature for this to be so, and sadly that runs against the grain in a colder country than his native Uruguay.

But what’s worse – this instinctive tendency of the Liverpool striker to get carried away in the moment and either lash out or bite off more than he can chew? Or the sly and nasty, calculated and measured breach of taste perpetrated by Evra, a man usually more sinning than sinned against, and whose actions appear inexplicably to draw nothing more than a fond smile from the Man U-centric media?

I know what I think. Silly lad, Suarez. Nasty git, Evra.