Luis Suárez

[Bender]

If only you'd ask to leave, Bendy.

Est would crumble without my presence ...

[Cormack74]

The last paragraph I could actually believe given that RM are prone to massaging their own ego on a daily basis:

http://www.marca.com/2014/06/05/en/football/international_football/1401954865.html

Any discussion of Luis Suárez tends to focus on his goalscoring stats, a department in which Real Madrid are already well stocked without the Uruguayan star. However, what this overlooks is his ability to set up goals, which could enable him to make a big impact for 'Los Blancos'.

This past season, the Liverpool frontman chalked up 31 goals and 24 assists in just 37 appearances, a stunning record that piqued Real's interest in signing him.

With two rampaging goal machines on either flank in Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, the centre-forward at Real has to play a somewhat different role than usual. That's why Carlo Ancelotti is a fan of Karim Benzema and why he has given the idea of bringing in Suárez the thumbs-up.

In three full seasons on Merseyside, the virtuoso has set up 48 goals for his teammates. Just imagine how many he could lay on in a team of Real's quality.

Since moving to Europe eight years ago, Suárez has notched up 195 goals and 127 assists. In other words, he is a top-class out-an-out striker and playmaker rolled into one. The only real doubt is how he would link up with Ronaldo and Bale, whether he would eat into their goal tallies or cramp the team's style.

Florentino's dream is to unite the joint 2013-14 European Golden Shoe winners under one roof at the Bernabéu, which could see history made by having the accolade presented to two players from the same club for the first time.

[Leyton388]

Fee agreed with Madrid APPARENTLY

http://shortme.us/news.php?url=liverpool-agree-117m-fee-with-real-madrid-for-luis-suarez-66824

[TheElephantMan]

If he goes then he leaves us in a much healthier position than he would have done 12 months sooner. I don't want us to lose him, but he will leave for a Spanish club sooner or later. If RM pay £100m for him then it's not the worst case scenario. Him leaving us for Arsenal last year would have left us completely ****ed. This time at least we have CL football to offer, our all-round play has improved massively and we'd have time to find a replacement (although finding a like-for-like player would be impossible). It failed for Spurs, but they bought dross. If he goes he goes with my blessing anyway for what it's worth.

[Mostar]

Not worried in the slightest, we have champions league football and are genuine title contenders everything which Suarez wanted, new contract signed last year I personally don't think he's going anywhere. Couldn't give the tiniest **** what garbage Marca are saying

I don't think it is that simple.

Climate, language, wages and playing for either Barca and/or Real Madrid is a dream for most South American players and if they do come for him I'm not so sure he'd say no.

That said we are in driver's seat so if he does want to go we will cash in nicely, not that I want to see him leave.

[MrMichael]

Fee agreed with Madrid APPARENTLY

http://shortme.us/news.php?url=liver...s-suarez-66824

Why bother though, that url doesn't even look real, it isn't trolling if people already know its going to be bull**** when they click on it.

[Fredo]

Why bother though, that url doesn't even look real, it isn't trolling if people already know its going to be bull**** when they click on it.

Clicked on that URL earlier on my phone and it was a dead link.

[MrMichael]

Clicked on that URL earlier on my phone and it was a dead link.

Its some sort of "create a fake story to troll facebook" site, maybe it works better there or something but its a pretty poor effort otherwise

[marcus50bucks]

Luis Suárez: at no point did I think I would miss the World Cup
A simple elastic band has aided the Uruguay striker’s return to fitness after knee surgery last month, boosting his chances of facing some Liverpool team-mates against England in Group D

Sid Lowe
The Guardian, Sunday 8 June 2014 22.00 BST

Sometimes there can only be one opening question – and this is one of those times. Over the past fortnight, it has been the question, asked over and over. It has been asked of everyone and anyone, only not of him. In Uruguay it has become an obsession, a country seeking reassurances as if their hopes rest solely upon the answer. So, Luis, are you going to make it? The response is cautious but it is confident. If there is one person that has not been worried about Luis Suárez playing at this summer’s World Cup, it is Luis Suárez.

And that, he says, is exactly why he should make it.

We met just over a week after Suárez underwent surgery on the meniscus in his left knee and less than a fortnight before Uruguay were to play their first World Cup match game, against Costa Rica, and he admits these have been “difficult days”. They have been painful days and long days, too. It is late in the evening and there is still more treatment to be done before the following day.

He sits with his leg up on a wooden bench, a cushion under his heel, but Suárez is in a remarkably positive mood.

“Emotionally, I’ve felt fine; psychologically, I’ve been spectacular. At no time did I feel pressured, at no time have I felt sad because at no point did I think there was a chance of me missing the World Cup,” he says.

“The thought never went through my mind. I could have really cried [in pain] because of this injury but I didn’t because I knew. I knew. When the doctor first spoke to me three little tears fell but no more. My wife said: ‘I can’t believe how strong you’re being’ but I knew I’d make it.”

Ah, but to which game? “What you don’t know is how the knee will react,” he says. “Today, I could say to you: ‘Yeah, I’ll make it to the first game’. Or: ‘No, I prefer to wait for the second or the third’.

“But you only know for sure as you progress and you see how the knee reacts. You can reach the 20th day and think: ‘I’m flying here’ but then that day your knee swells up and everything slows down. For as long as the knee resists and there’s no pain, so long as the quadriceps strengthen, you’re OK.”

Suárez is determined to be cautious – and so is everyone in the Uruguay setup. It is the day after the team doctor, Alberto Pan, addressed the media to tell them the news that “there is no news”.

There has been a conscious effort to prevent this becoming a circus and, it is tempting to conclude, to avoid giving clues, too. Theoretically, it also isolates Suárez from the noise but he cannot help but be aware of it. One wild story circulating even claimed he had damaged his cruciate ligament as well. “Daft,” Suarez says.

He has barely been seen; when he returned to Uruguay’s Complejo Celeste HQ outside Montevideo towards the airport he worked in the gym, away from prying eyes. Most of his rehabilitation has been done not far from there, at home.

He has a Tens machine but the most significant piece of equipment has been a simple elastic band. A few days later, he appeared on the pitch for the first time, with medical staff. Reports enthusiastically note that he had even done some ball work and some sprints. For now, though, the treatment is simple: he gets up and walks steadily out of the room. It is time to apply ice once more.

Suárez is following the regime carefully – as he has done since 22 May, when he was brought home in a wheelchair after the operation. The surgery was carried out by doctor Luis Francescoli – the brother of the former Uruguay player Enzo Francescoli, Suárez’s idol. “Pure chance,” he grins. “Incredible.” For the first few days he was ordered to rest but the rehabilitation process began swiftly.

For Suárez, being strong emotionally has been vital. Physical pain? He can handle that; there is something almost indestructible about him. As the interview ends, time to fetch the ice, he tells the story of the time he was hit by a car, broke his foot and kept playing.

“I was 12 or so, near [Nacional’s ground] Parque Central. I’d fractured my fifth metatarsal but I didn’t realise and played anyway. Eventually, they put a plaster cast on but I still played at school.

“When I went to get it taken off, there wasn’t much left; the heel had been worn away and the doctor was furious. A week after they took the plaster off I played a proper match.

“I’m an emotional person and I externalise my feelings a lot with some things but I’m strong with others,” he continues. “Injuries are not only a physical question, which is the most important thing of course, but also a question of your mind. If you’re thinking: ‘I’m not going to make it’, ‘I can’t cope’, ‘it hurts’, ‘it’s never going to get better’, then it won’t. My objective was clear: be strong emotionally and physically. I wanted my children to be able to see me play at the World Cup.

“Of course there was the normal worry there always is when you undergo an operation … and an operation is always an operation. At first I had to rest completely. I couldn’t put weight on it at all. To see my wife worried, saying: ‘don’t move’, ‘sit still’, ‘stay there’; to not be able to put the kids to bed or bath them; was hard. But I was more concerned about that than not making it. If they had said to me that the extent of the injury was greater, I’d have been worried. But knowing the grade of the injury, I was confident.

“I knew that there was time to make it carefully so there was no point in risking trying to get ahead of myself. I would rather get there just on time but be sure that it is right.

“After a couple of days I was on crutches and Walter Ferreira, the physio, said: ‘get rid of those’. He told me to put weight through it, but gently. Don’t do what some do and leap right on to it. Bang, bang, bang. ‘Bit by bit, until the pain goes,’ he said. And, bit by bit, the pain goes.

“I’ve heard so many meniscus stories: some players say: ‘I was back in 15 days’, the next one says 20, the next says 25. Each case is different. Some players said: ‘I was walking on the second day’. But then they admit: ‘After 20 days it swelled up again’. And now it seems everyone’s a doctor.

“Today I’ve been exercising with an elastic band, lifting my leg like this, up and down,” he continues, demonstrating the movement. “The aim is to build the quadriceps: that’s what supports the knee. Sometimes you do your exercises and you look down at the knee and think ‘it’s swollen’ but it’s not swollen; that’s just the way it is and that’s the way it will be now.

“I’ve worked indoors so far. What I don’t want to do is to go outside and start jogging and for people to see me like this,” Suárez adds, imitating a limp. “When I go out on to the pitch, I want to go out there ready. We know what the expectations are like and what the media is like. They’d say: ‘Today he’s jogging but he doesn’t look quite right’. Then it’ll be: ‘Today he was running normally’. And that can load pressure on and also create a false impression.”

The pressure comes from the importance. The World Cup dominates everything here; it feels like every billboard and every advert is dedicated to Brazil 2014; many of them featuring Suárez.

Except, that is, the billboards and banners that are yet to come down since last Sunday’s elections, when Suárez’s friend and team-mate Sebastián Coates admits he spent much of the day taking friends and family to the polling booths.

And if the World Cup preparations dominate everything, Suárez’s recovery dominates World Cup preparations. The interest, and the speculation, has been intense. Suárez was not among the 50,000 who attended Uruguay’s two pre-World Cup matches at the Centenario. Outside the stadium were mobile hairdressers. Inside, fans were showing what they would do for Uruguay; a girl sat as they dyed her hair sky blue; alongside, a teenage boy was getting his hair shaved off entirely.

“Maybe in England the Premier League eclipses everything but here it’s all about the World Cup,” Suárez says. “The day of the operation was incredible. The affection is overwhelming. I left hospital in a wheelchair and there were so many people there, although I never really understood why they wanted a picture, to be honest. Then there were loads of journalists outside my house. I told one of them: ‘All you’re going to get is cold.’ I wasn’t going to leave the house.”

A few days ago Suárez turned up at the Complejo Celeste to join his team-mates for lunch. One Uruguayan newspaper printed a photo of him. He was moving well. Suárez laughs. “That picture was from two years ago! I went in the back door and no one saw me. And I was limping a little bit.”

There is a theme developing here. “I saw reports saying that I had told the Liverpool players I would make it for the game against England, for sure,” he continues. “But I didn’t say that. The day of the operation I exchanged messages with Stevie [Gerrard] and Glen [Johnson]. They said: ‘Hope to see you in Brazil’. And I said: ‘Yeah, see you there’. That’s not exactly the same thing. I never said I’d definitely be there.

“This is the game everyone is looking forward to most here. It’s incredible to see how Uruguayans have followed Liverpool; they’ve become fans and that makes me feel very proud. To see an entire country waiting on the Liverpool games is incredible or to see people angry because they can’t watch it because it’s only on satellite TV. People are getting up early in the morning to watch us play,” he says.

In front of them on 19 June will be familiar faces; there could plausibly be five of Suárez’s Liverpool team-mates in England’s starting XI.

“I’ve already told Gerrard that we’ll swap shirts,” Suárez says. “And Glen will ask for my shirt, I’m sure. Maybe Daniel [Sturridge] and Raheem [Sterling] will as well. I’ll take a few with me.”

He speaks from experience. “When we played Holland in 2010, I was at Ajax and had friends in their team. I had to tell the kit man I needed five shirts. Although I didn’t play, they still wanted my shirt; they have the date and the match stitched into them, so it’s a nice reminder of the match. So, ys, I’ll swap shirts. I’m not sure I’ll actually put it on though!

“A World Cup is always different but my team-mates are playing very well and they could play a similar role for England as they have for Liverpool,” Suárez continues. “I was particularly pleased when I heard that Raheem and Jordan [Henderson] were in the squad. I didn’t have their numbers so I got hold of them to send messages saying congratulations. A year ago there were people who didn’t rate them and now, because they played so well this season, they’ve been called up.

“For Raheem, who’s so young, it will be a wonderful experience. England have a nice mix of experience and youth this time: in previous years, there were players who were maybe a bit past their best. Now there are players coming through with hunger to succeed. We have to be very careful.

“But,” he adds, matter of fact: “They do have weaknesses at the back and I know what they are.”

Such as?

“I won’t be saying that in the paper ... but in the Uruguay squad, I will.”

Suárez admits that, beyond the obvious names, the player he most likes is Leighton Baines and describes this tournament as a good opportunity for Wayne Rooney. He warns against overburdening the Manchester United striker, though.

“Baines is a player I like a lot,” he says. “His focus is less on the defensive side of the game, more on getting forward, but he has got the best left foot in the Premier League. He’s spectacular. He has a lot of quality, he strikes the ball very well and, with good players around him, England can benefit from that. We have to be very careful,” he says. “Rooney has that will to win and this is a good chance for him. I read [Roy] Hodgson saying that people were piling responsibility on to him.

“It’s good that he has responsibility but not pressure: he has a lot of good players around him. It’s not just Rooney. You have to value the rest; you shouldn’t overlook them. England have lots of talented players.”

And that’s the crux. When the traditional lament is put to Suárez, it serves only to make him smile. Limited opportunities, few players, a small talent pool: these are not explanations that convince him. “Not many resources? With the quality and quantity of players there are, with the facilities they have to train, with everything they have in the ‘first world’, as we call it?” he starts. “With the millions of players and the resources they have … if that’s little resources, what have we got?”

The thing is, that might actually be exactly Uruguay’s secret. At the Luis Franzini stadium, with its purple wooden benches, it was the night of the play-off, first leg for the national title. About 5,000 would attend. Grounds are small and crumbling but there is something about them: a feeling, identity, edge. </italics>Something. This is a country of three million people that has twice won the World Cup. They are the holders of the Copa América and reached the World Cup semi-final four years ago.

“Yes,” Suárez says, “our secret lies in the determination not to settle for anything, never to accept the minimum. And we don’t want people to remember us for South Africa 2010 any more; we want them to remember us for Brazil 2014.”

http://www.theguardian.com/football...ess-knee-surgery-liverpool-england?CMP=twt_gu

[McDermotX]

“I’ve already told Gerrard that we’ll swap shirts,” Suárez says. “And Glen will ask for my shirt, I’m sure. Maybe Daniel [Sturridge] and Raheem [Sterling] will as well. I’ll take a few with me.”

My my.....don't we have a big head.

[Chazza]

Ancelotti: "Luis Suarez is fantastic, but it is impossible to improve our attack"

Real Madrid coach, Carlo Ancelotti, said Monday on rumors that put the Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez in the orbit of the set target, it is a "fantastic" player, but said it is "impossible to improve" the attack Madrid, and that all staff has proven to be "very competitive".

"Luis Suarez is a fantastic player, has great quality and is very good. But talk about other things, is disrespectful.'s Impossible to improve the attack Real Madrid, because Cristiano, Benzema, Bale, Jesse. Our forwards are very competitive, "said the Italian in the presentation of their new website at the Italian Embassy in Madrid.

In that sense, the coach was delighted with the team having their orders. "The squad is very good and we are very competitive. If we can improve it, which is not easy, we will, but if we stay with those I'll be happy. This group has won two cups and will also be very competitive next year. No I have hurry to decide, "he said.

However, Ancelotti has admitted that in talks with the club to strengthen the team. "We talked about the upcoming season and we agree on what we will try to improve, but until the end of World not think we should do anything. We have to wait, no time to do it because the market is open until 31 August. We have no hurry, we have to do many things, "deepened.

One of the issues that should solve the Real Madrid will be the goal. "We have not thought about it. After the victory in the final of the Champions League, everyone went on vacation. Club spoke to Casillas and he is happy to stay, like everyone else.'ll Be time to think about next season, "he said.

In addition, the Reggiolo was happy to regain a player who was unable to participate due to injury much of the season. "I think we have to think that this season we have not had to Khedira, an important player, who will play next year with us. Distribution in the midfield is better with him. Rumored Players who are very good but we'll see if there is something, "he said.

Lighter Ancelotti has the issue of the possible departure of the striker Alvaro Morata team. "She wants to look for an opportunity to play more minutes, the club agrees with this and looking for a good chance to play this year. If the end comes out, we have to think in a front of the same characteristics," he admitted.

Otherwise is Di Maria, which expected to stay at Real Madrid. "We know very well that everybody wants, both the coach and the club and the fans. Has no doubt about it," he said about the 'noodle'.

"SPOKE WITH CHRISTIAN MAKES ONE WEEK AND WAS WELL".

About the World Cup event in which Carlo Ancelotti has one eye on the participation of any of his players and where you want to see a "hard-Italy Spain" in the final, the Italian expects to see the best version of his players, especially Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo.

"We have not spoken with the medical services in Portugal, but with him a week ago. Was feeling well and was doing individual work.'s Fine and ready for the World Cup," admitted the Real coach.

No concerns about his fitness for next year, the white coach hopes to repeat the successes and improve this season. "We have the chance to win six titles, but not easy.'s Goal is to be competitive in all competitions. We have done very well this season coming to an end in all three, and the first for next year is to think about it "he said.

"We've done something special this year by winning the 'Tenth', we know very well. Thing we celebrated with all the madridista world, is the most important. See the face of Real Madrid gives you a lot of happiness," he said about it.

As for your nearest future, no limit is marked. "I have the same passion as a coach on the first day. When you have it, it will be time to finish my career. So far, I feel great after my first year in Madrid where everything has gone well, since the results so atmosphere and setting. Madrid and I love the people here, "he said.

In fact, it raises even become Italy coach. "I've said many times that all coaches ever think of directing the national team. But right now I feel good here. I want to continue coaching a club, and wish to continue long into the Real Madrid. Did not now think of another thing, "he insisted.

Finally, he referred to the demotion of the subsidiaries of Real Madrid. "We are not happy at the Castilla. After a bad start to the season, the team we did well and tried to avoid relegation, but has no luck and now I think the club together, think and speak what will happen to the branches, "he said.

http://www.europapress.es/deportes/futbol-00162/noticia-ancelotti-luis-suarez-fantastico-imposible-mejorar-ataque-real-madrid-20140609135454.html

[danperkins]

Can you imagine the clash between Ronaldo & Suarez. Bale has been brilliant for Madrid, production stats are superb & he has been playing second fiddle to Ronaldo. I couldn't see Suarez stepping aside from all the free kicks just because of Ronaldo.

For me.. Aguero would be the best fit for them. Ronaldo - Aguero - Bale would be absolutely ridiculous.

[Angryred]

Can you imagine the clash between Ronaldo & Suarez. Bale has been brilliant for Madrid, production stats are superb & he has been playing second fiddle to Ronaldo. I couldn't see Suarez stepping aside from all the free kicks just because of Ronaldo.

For me.. Aguero would be the best fit for them. Ronaldo - Aguero - Bale would be absolutely ridiculous.

Certainly would be awesome as Aguero is exactly what they need...They create chance after chance with limited conversions so a simple fox in the box will increase that...they would have walked the league last year!

[Cormack74]

http://www.europapress.es/deportes/f...609135454.html

Thank goodness there isn't a doubt about the noodle.

[danperkins]

Certainly would be awesome as Aguero is exactly what they need...They create chance after chance with limited conversions so a simple fox in the box will increase that...they would have walked the league last year!

That strike force would be unfair on teams. He is exactly what they need.