Luis could end up in Italy or Spain
Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport couldn’t quite make up its mind about Luis Suarez yesterday. Good, bad and maybe ugly as well. In the end they plumped for a sort of Dracula-Tuco hybrid, like a Spaghetti Western set in Transylvania.
“It’s just the latest in the Uruguayan’s endless series of idiocies” said Stefano Cantalupi, who’s still just getting his head round the Paolo Di Canio row (“Fascist? Of course he’s a fascist. Didn’t you know?”).
The Italians like a pantomime villain as much as any other country, what has them scratching their heads is the lunacy of Suarez performing a repeat of the act that led Ajax to sell him at the end of 2010.
Back then the victim was PSV’s Otman Bakkal, bitten not in the shoulder as stated in the English media but in the neck according to Dutch football paper Voetbal International. The paper also points out that in that game as well the offence “was not perceived by the referee but based on television images”.
That was an even stranger incident in fact, coming right at the end of the game when Ajax midfielder Rasmus Lindgren, a former team-mate of Suarez at Groningen, was involved in a flare-up and dismissed. In the ensuing stand-off Suarez was seen to lean forward and give Bakkal a little nip near the collar-bone. Surprisingly Bakkal seemed to see the funny side of it for he was pictured grinning a few moments later and then embracing Suarez after the final whistle. The Dutch football authorities and the Ajax management took a less indulgent view.
It does seem some of Suarez’s offences are more crazy than malicious, but he had a bad reputation for diving when he played in the Eredivisie and a deliberate handball in the World Cup against Ghana did nothing for his reputation.
Nevertheless his reputation as a marksman — in the positive sense — has been enhanced during his time at Liverpool, and even if the club are insisting that Suarez will not be sold as a result of this incident it is a curious coincidence that trouble follows just a month after an ambiguous statement about his future plans. Just as at Ajax it could be that the interests of both parties are served by a move.
The clubs interested would include several in Italy and Spain, among them two who seem likely to sell a top striker in the summer — Atletico Madrid and Napoli.
Atletico have Falcao heavily mortgaged because of third-party ownership: it is in the investors’ interests to sell while the market is strong, and also before the international football chiefs move to change the ownership rules.
For their part, Napoli now seem ready to sell Edinson Cavani — at a hefty profit. Replacing one Uruguayan with another would be a straightforward move. Reputation is hardly an issue: on the contrary. For a club with Diego Maradona as its all-time hero Luis Suarez is hardly controversial.
Move or no move it should help Suarez this time — outside England anyway — that the rest of Europe is focused on this week’s Champions League showdowns in Dortmund and Munich. “Bayern are ready to bite” declared L’Equipe yesterday without a trace of a Gallic sense of humour, and these semi-finals are among the most eagerly awaited in recent years.
Bayern are on a mission after their humiliation the last time they met Lionel Messi and company. Real Madrid are on a mission to end their extraordinary jinx on German soil: one solitary win in 24 attempts. You fancy they might do it now, despite coming off second-best against Dortmund in their group. Jose Mourinho’s sides have a habit of turning the tables on opponents in Europe. Dortmund were fortunate to knock out Malaga with the aid of some less than competent match officials.
All the same they have the players and the direct counter attacking game to worry the Spanish — just as Bayern are equipped to trouble Barcelona. The potential is there in both semi-finals for a dramatic second leg, and it will be to the advantage of both German sides if the opposition have to come at them in the return game.
