“The story of love was an objective, more important than being successful in football.”
Luis Suarez: serial winner, prolific goalscorer, headline-maker and, probably less well known, a romantic who left South America as a teenager to follow his childhood sweetheart to Europe.
The 31-year-old has won the Champions League and multiple La Liga titles with Barcelona claimed the Premier League Golden Boot and Player of the Year trophy with Liverpool and is Uruguay’s all-time leading scorer.
But his footballing tale begins with him borrowing boots in Montevideo, and is one motivated by the constant desire to reunite with girlfriend Sofia after her family moved to Barcelona when he was 16.
From joining Urreta as a seven-year-old to becoming one of the game’s most sought-after talents at Ajax, BBC Sport explores the making of Suarez with those who knew him best. Suarez was born in Salto in January 1987, moving to Montevideo aged seven with his parents and six brothers. It was here he began playing “baby football” for Urreta FC.
Pablo Parodi, friend and neighbour of the Suarez family in Montevideo: “He was a quiet kid, he wasn’t someone who would stand out. He always spent time with his brothers. He was very relaxed, very quiet, very respectful. But he had his personality, he was also a little crafty.
“Sometimes he’d come to the bakery, wolfing down a cake or something sweet, so he didn’t have to share with his brothers because there were loads of them. “At the weekends they’d go to the pitches and play at Urreta. They’d go out early and get back late at around seven or eight at night, all wiped out – they’d come back pleased because they always won and there were goals.
“They were a very close family. In terms of money, they were very poor. They didn’t have a lot and work was down to the mother.”
Antonio di Candia coached Suarez when at Urreta: “He’d come here with his mother and his brother and he played on Saturdays, so they’d spend the entire day here. “He’d moved from Salto and generally the children are quieter and don’t say as much. He didn’t speak much, but on the pitch, he was pretty unbearable.”
Wilson Piris, Suarez’s first agent: “His brothers, all of his family, they were very humble, yet were working people with drive and I think he soaked all that up at home. “Sometimes he didn’t have shoes and played with ones he’d borrowed. If you needed to get shoes for him, you got shoes for him. He’d often walk to training to save money and take it home.
“At 12 years of age, these aren’t things that everyone would do. Luis had that personality, to help at home in a way he felt he could at that moment. And then at the weekend, he earned money from us for goals. “We’d laugh because we’d always have ‘bets’ to encourage him. And, as you could imagine, for him to help his family was the most valuable thing there was.”
The youngster’s ability caught the eye of one of Uruguay’s biggest clubs, Nacional, and he joined the Montevideo-based side’s youth set-up as a 14-year-old.
Di Candia: “Luisito was already standing out as a goalscorer. Sometimes games would end 5-0, 8-0, 8-2, and he’d get four or five goals. So the signs were already there that he was going to be a great player.
“He was really strong and he had a temper back then, just like now. Luisito would argue with his team-mates if they didn’t pass to him, over a free-kick, a penalty. He had a fiery temper.”
Piris: “There were few of us who really believed in Luis, because he had a very particular personality and playing style. He was the type of kid who would fall over the ball and, where other kids would miss the target, Luis would score.
“I suspected he might make it and have that future, because he said that he was going to play for Barcelona.
“I’d always say the same to him: ‘What are you talking about, playing at Barcelona, when you’re a sub in the seventh team at Nacional? There’s no way you can make it.’ And that was his personality, in that he always thought he would get there.”
Mario Rebollo, who first spotted Suarez playing for Nacional Under-15s while he was coaching Montevideo Wanderers: “Luis was part of a really good crop of players at Nacional.
“He wasn’t the outstanding player that he is today, but he played in a strikeforce with Martín Cauteruccio, Bruno Fornaroli and this was the best generation of players out of all of the teams around here.
“Then we saw each other again two years later, in 2004. I moved on to be an assistant coach to Santiago Ostolaza, who was the coach of Nacional, and that pre-season we made Luis come back from Spain.
“Luis was going out with Sofia and he still holds it against me to this day that we made him report for pre-season training, cut short his holiday, and then didn’t pick him for the first-team squad.”
Source: BBC News
