Why naughty boy Suarez is being defended

Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverde has defended Luis Suarez for failing to impress during the pre-season period.

Suarez had a poor performance during Barcelona’s Supercopa da Espana clash against Boca juniors where the striker could not find the back of the net. The Spanish giants registered 3-0 win over the Argentine side thanks to goals from Malcom, Lionel Messi and Rafinha. Despite the Uruguayan struggling, Valverde is not worried about his top striker’s shaky form.

“Luis is fine. He’s only just coming back from his [post-World Cup] break, so he’s gradually getting up to speed, but he looks good. He was criticised at the start of last season, too, because he was struggling to score goals regularly. But when he starts [scoring] he doesn’t stop,” he said.

”Luis is a goalscorer, he’s aggressive in the area… We know what he gives us. Regardless of his success [in front of goal], the fight is always there. He has that. Goals are a question of patience and perseverance,” he added.

The 31-year-old had a slow start last campaign drawing lots of criticism but ended up netting 31 goals in all competitions for Barca.

 

Suárez has won 17 trophies in his career, including five league titles and a UEFA Champions League title at club level, and a Copa América with Uruguay. A prolific goalscorer, Suárez has won two European Golden Shoes, an Eredivisie Golden Boot, a Premier League Golden Boot, as well as ending the six-year dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo by winning La Liga’s Pichichi Trophy in 2016. He has scored over 400 senior career goals for club and country.

Suárez began his career as a youth player for Nacional in 2003. At age 19, he relocated to the Netherlands to play for Groningen, before transferring to Ajax in 2007. He won his first trophy in 2010, the KNVB Cup, finishing the season as the league’s top scorer and was named Dutch Footballer of the Year. A year later, he helped Ajax secure the Eredivisie title, and scored his 100th Ajax goal. In January 2011, Suárez transferred to Liverpool, and won the League Cup in his first full season. In 2014, he was named the PFA Players’ Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year as well as winning the Premier League Golden Boot, and sharing the European Golden Shoe with Cristiano Ronaldo before moving to Barcelona in a transfer worth €82.3 million (£64.98 million), making him one of the most expensive players in football history.

In his first season at Barcelona, Suárez starred in an attacking trio alongside Lionel Messi and Neymar, helping the club win a historic second continental treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League. Messi, Suárez, Neymar (dubbed MSN), scored a total of 122 goals that season, the most for an attacking front three in Spanish football history.In his second season at the club, Suárez won his first Pichichi Trophy as well as his second European Golden Shoe, for which he became the first player since 2009 to win both awards other than Messi or Ronaldo. He ended the season with a total of 40 league goals, fourteen of which came in his last 5 matches, and 16 assists, becoming the first player in history to top La Liga in both goals and assists.

Suárez is Uruguay’s all-time leading goalscorer. At the 2010 FIFA World Cup he played an important role in Uruguay’s fourth-place finish, scoring three goals, as well as controversially blocking a goal-bound extra time header with his hands during the quarter-final against Ghana. At the 2011 Copa América, Suárez scored four goals as Uruguay won a record fifteenth Copa América, and he was named Player of the Tournament. At the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Suárez scored his 40th international goal before he was suspended from the tournament after biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini. Suárez has been a source of controversy throughout his career.  As well as his goal-line handball, he has also bitten opponents on three separate occasions. He has also been accused of and admitted to diving,  and in 2011, the FA found him guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra, a decision Suárez disputes

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