Luis Suárez

[Ben_Itez]

Just been watching Soccer Saturday on SSN and they started with the Suarez handball against Mansfield. Only spent about 25 minutes talking about it

Surprisingly Thommo was the only one sticking up for him, all the others saying he cheated - obviously they couldnt show the goal as it was on ESPN but it was just accepted by everyone that he deliberately handled the ball.

Le Tissier when asked if he would have owned up to ref said he wouldnt have had to as he would never have blatantly handled the ball like that. Merse and Nicholas saying they would have owned up - absolutely laughable

Those three also had a go at Suarez saying if he'd admitted it he would have gone some way to redeeming himself inthe public's eyes......unbelievable.

Can't remember there being such a reaction to Crouch's goal which was definitely deliberate handball and Demba Ba's goal which he actually deliberately handled into the net (against Reading i think) and ran off celebrating.

Ended with Stelling saying he cheated. Ludicrous

[Ben_Itez]

Oh and they briefly mentioned at the end what bacon face had to say about Suarez and they all laughed hysterically.....'classic mind games from Sir Alex' practically in unison.

****ing cheating cunt more like

[spanky]

I just hope tomorrow the brillant Suarez we all know turns up and puts in a masterclass of a performance. Not for the jackals but for us the fans and neutrals watching who have the sense to see through the ****.

[Shaggy]

Just been watching Soccer Saturday on SSN and they started with the Suarez handball against Mansfield. Only spent about 25 minutes talking about it

Surprisingly Thommo was the only one sticking up for him, all the others saying he cheated - obviously they couldnt show the goal as it was on ESPN but it was just accepted by everyone that he deliberately handled the ball.

Le Tissier when asked if he would have owned up to ref said he wouldnt have had to as he would never have blatantly handled the ball like that. Merse and Nicholas saying they would have owned up - absolutely laughable

Those three also had a go at Suarez saying if he'd admitted it he would have gone some way to redeeming himself inthe public's eyes......unbelievable.

Can't remember there being such a reaction to Crouch's goal which was definitely deliberate handball and Demba Ba's goal which he actually deliberately handled into the net (against Reading i think) and ran off celebrating.

Ended with Stelling saying he cheated. Ludicrous

I deliberately avoided it today for this reason. Knew they'd go off like that. Utter cunts.

[Cormack74]

I know it's a long shot, but did anyone hear the ridiculous exposure he got on the Supersport coverage of the South Africa vs New Zealand test match? I was amused by it, but it just goes to show how much the media have vilified him if ex-cricketers are having a pop at him.

Out of interest how did they work that in to the coverage of a test match?

[Leyton388]

Seems Fergie is right. Controversy follows Luis anywhere he goes. I mean look at these pictures. Taken from TLW

[Yozza]

Sorry but

[Muddled]

Suarez is a nasty little player to be up against but you'd still want him in your team

He earns £80,000 a week. He should know better. He should set an example to kids. That’s what we expect of our footballers. The rewards they receive demand a level of behaviour.

That’s what many people would say and, on one level, I’ve no argument. When I was given my first contract, the youth team coach, Eric Harrison, told me: ‘You’re a Manchester United player now.’ The implication is that certain standards are expected. And as you grow older, you realise that you’re a United player for life — your attitudes and behaviour will always be scrutinised and questioned.

But what I will never accept is people making a direct link between the amount of money you earn and your behaviour, as though a new, £80,000-a-week contract will automatically bring a certain level of responsibility.

Your character isn’t formed by your bank balance. It is developed over 20 years of growing up through different experiences — some good, some bad — through parenting and upbringing. And a £4million-a-year contract won’t change that overnight.
And as I’ve watched the debate on Luis Suarez gather momentum, I detect a rush to judge a footballer, to castigate him without any thought to how different his life experiences are.

Though Suarez is 25, he has been in England for only two years. He’s still adjusting. This is a kid who grew up playing football on the streets in Uruguay, who has experiences and a background completely different from anyone reading this newspaper. Those are the years in which character is formed. Then you’re thrust into a global game with expectations of behaviour and certain rules and regulations which maybe didn’t exist when you were learning your football.

In most professions, you build a career over time, making your mistakes in obscurity when you’re young before getting financial rewards. Who doesn’t know someone young who has been disciplined or sacked for misjudging a situation in an office? Usually it comes early in a career and most learn from it. In football it’s the other way round: the money and status comes when you’re young and the maturity comes afterwards.

That’s why I think there are such strong feelings about Suarez. Opposition fans despise him and he would be a nasty little player to go up against. I know that if I was up against him at Old Trafford today, there would be a confrontation. One of us would put in an over-the-top tackle or an elbow. At best, there would be a shouting match at some point because he’s the kind of player who takes the fight to you.

But I’ll tell you something else: he’s exactly the kind of player you would want in your team. And, as a fan, you would love to see him on your side.

Liverpool fans sing: ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers.’ But now they could just as well chant about a team full of players like Suarez, a fighter who will chase down the ball, one of the most skilful players in the Premier League, and a player who this season has had more touches in the opposition’s penalty area than anyone in the top flight.

I understand why some people will never like him. The racial abuse he directed at Patrice Evra is totally unacceptable in England, whatever he says about what passes for acceptable language in Uruguay. But he has served his punishment for a big mistake.

But the supposed cheating, the diving, the lack of sportsmanship? For me, it hardly merits the discussion time we give it. I haven’t got a problem with the handball against Mansfield other than that it was a poor decision that went against a non-League club and might have cost them a much-needed replay. But I’ve never heard the word cheat used so cheaply as in recent weeks by former players and pundits. Cheating, for me, is doping, cheating is match-fixing, despicable actions which undermine the whole essence of sport.

A handball or a foul on a player bearing down on goal is part of the game. It’s covered in the rules. You take your penalty — be it a sending-off or a free-kick — and get on with the game. Everyone in sport knows that. It’s a harsh environment, where not everything turns out fairly, just as in everyday life. What happened against Mansfield was an injustice. But it wasn’t cheating.

When I look at Suarez I see one hell of a footballer, a player whose name you can be sure will be dominating United’s preparations. This is no show-pony. This is a player who doesn’t know when he’s beaten. In that respect he’s better than Fernando Torres, who you feel might get despondent when things aren’t going well. Not Suarez. He’d be in your face, scrapping every minute of the game, even if all hope was lost.

Liverpool are going through a difficult time and I’m sure their fans will feel he represents the club’s spirit on the pitch, almost in the way that Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard do. He might have learnt his football on the streets of Salto and Montevideo, but you could almost imagine him having grown up around Anfield, between those back-to-back terraced houses, such is his commitment to his team’s cause. And they will also know that Liverpool will have to add a few more players like him if he is to stay at the club for the long term.

Suarez has made mistakes and had moments he will regret. But then I’ve had a few of those, especially in this match, incidents for which I was fined and missed matches. It’s right that the authorities punish you when you do step out of line. And slowly you learn to temper your behaviour and mature. And, at 25, Suarez is reaching the point when he does need to make sure there are fewer and fewer controversial moments.

Today, he could do well to look at his direct opponent. Robin van Persie is the best striker in the country. Most people would regard him as a very good professional. Last year he was the overwhelming choice for both Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year and Footballer of the Year.

But when he was a 20-year-old at Feyenoord he had a controversial reputation. His coach, Bert van Marwijk, called him ‘uncontrollable’. He had an on-pitch argument with the star player, Pierre van Hooijdonk. Now Van Persie’s 29 and all that has changed.

It took time to develop into the model professional. But you are dealing with a human being with a unique set of experiences and motivations, not a robot. And if Suarez can do the same, he has the potential to be a great player.

Linkage: Gary Neville for the Daily Mail

[ChesterDave]

Le Tis said that? Internet Terrorists to battle stations! I mean, its not as if the smarmy little cunt face confessed in his book to trying to deliberately kick the ball out of play to win money from bookies

[EwarWoo]

Wow, damn good article from Neville. Hard to believe its not 1 big shaggy edit.

[RichC]

By far and away the best and most honest pundit out there, a few old hands could and should take some pointers from the Neviller

I am now going to scrub myself with creosote for praising him amd perhaps give myself a Chinese burn

[Shaggy]

Great stuff from Neville. He's brilliant.

The only thing he got wrong was saying RVP is the best striker in England.

[Assassin]

I despise Neville. However, he has this spot on!

"This is no show-pony"

[danperkins]

Gary Neville has more balance and common sense in his articles than most seasoned journalists & he is by a country mile the best pundit on the tv.

Very strange that we are talking about the same Gary Neville.... staunch Man Utd supporter... but he is a breath of fresh air amongst so many despicable and vile cretins.

I'm fast becoming reliant on Gary Neville to have a balanced,sensible opinion with a voice of reason .... who would have ever thought that

[Shaggy]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/cartoon-villain-avoids-capture-by-refusing-to-not-be-himself-3350295.html

Cartoon villain avoids capture by refusing to not be himself

When Luis Suarez encounters Robin van Persie at Old Trafford today, it will be hard not to think of Jack Nicholson's Joker dancing with Kim Basinger in Batman. "Beauty and the beast," Jack's Joker says as he spins her round. "Of course, if anyone else calls you a beast I'll rip their lungs out."

Last week Suarez faced more calls to perform an act of redemption even though he clearly didn't feel he was in need of redeeming. He was beautiful as he was.

Robin van Persie has scored 16 Premier League goals this season. Luis Suarez has scored 15. Both have been suggested as candidates for Footballer of the Year. Luis Suarez won't win. The Joker can't win. Batman or, in this case, Robin will.

Van Persie has glided through the season. He has made the preposterous seem prosaic. His comment that he was joining Manchester United because the "the little boy inside" was screaming for it becomes less ludicrous by the week.

There may still be cries of abuse from the betrayed Arsenal fans but they are becoming fainter, like the villains in Superman, spinning away into infinity.

Van Persie has obeyed the little boy inside and he has made sense of Manchester United's seemingly bizarre decision to surrender midfield and overload with forwards.

Van Persie's legacy may be a further abandoning of sense in the transfer market. When your side needs a midfielder, why not make your most substantial signing in four years a forward who is touching 30 and has been troubled by injury for most of his career? Van Persie's genius has been to make all this seem logical.

If Van Persie is a classical footballer who finds time and space where they don't exist, Suarez defies some other football logic: he is one of the few circus footballers who can play.

Suarez seeks out the most crowded areas on the field, going down blind alleys where he should be mugged. Instead he emerges unscathed, with those who tried to stop him left behind in pain and bleak contemplation.

Only those without a soul felt no compassion when he entered the field at Mansfield last Sunday. Mansfield had done so much and now they would have to endure the particular cruelty which is his talent and his desire to win.

As the recession took hold, Stefan Szymanski, the co-author of Soccernomics, predicted there would be no curtailing of wages and players' behaviour to reflect these harder times. Instead, he said, the opposite would happen. Players would become richer and they would enter a cartoonish parallel universe. There would be cartoon bad guys and cartoon good guys, but mainly cartoon bad guys.

Suarez has not just captured this zeitgeist, he is holding it for ransom and sending its severed fingers in the post to distraught family members.

He has had a curious effect on the English football community. Perhaps they remember Ratin from 1966 and remain wary of the South American footballer.

They are eager for Suarez to change and understand what is "required from a player in England". Suarez instead tries to do what is required of a player in the professional game.

There has also been some confusion over the Premier League. Because it takes place in England, there is the understandable assumption that it is English when it is a multi-cultural event taking place within that land merely for reasons of convenience.

At best, it is an English colony, an alien land which they are trying to tame. Suarez is like a character from a David Lean film, mysterious and unknowable, a trait even more pronounced because those most angered by him don't know much at the best of times.

The players have become the caricatures Szymanski predicted but the reactions to them remain rooted in what Conrad Black would call 'bourgeois priggishness'.

If they could serve an ASBO on Suarez, they would. The world will see a DC Comics villain when he walks out at Old Trafford today.

Some of this will be justified. Last year's fixtures between these two teams were scarred by the incident at Anfield between Patrice Evra and Suarez and the subsequent failure of Suarez to shake Evra's hand at Old Trafford. Suarez's image is affected by more than just that. He is seen as the worst of all possible things this season: a diver.

Just as some anti-communism in America in the 1920s and '30s was a cover for anti-Semitism, so the most rabid elements of the anti-diving campaign use it as a proxy for xenophobia. Foreigners, we are told by so many, are responsible for the plague and while English football stamps down on racism, it continues to tolerate this prejudice.

Moral outrage works best with a common enemy and this enemy is so despised, this sickness so debilitating that nobody minds when sweeping generalisations are made. When English football is howling, Suarez is their nemesis, the Joker prowling through Gotham City terrifying the citizens. England has observed zero tolerance on racism but xenophobia continues to receive a pass.

Suarez, with his own suspension for racist abuse, is a person many don't feel like defending with good reason.

Even in that matter, most people still insist he called Evra 'negro'. Suarez and Evra were speaking Spanish and Suarez racially abused him using the word 'black'. Suarez's behaviour and some of the actions defending it were wrong and destructive but the fact that the language he was speaking is so often ignored is telling in itself.

He is seen as one of the trailblazers for diving when, in fact, he dives a lot but dives very badly.

Suarez is shameless which may be a useful quality to have as a human being but it's a useless trait to have if you want to cheat.

Damien Comolli warned that Suarez could be driven out of Liverpool by the vilification. That would seem out of character. He first penetrated the wider consciousness by celebrating inappropriately when Ghana missed a penalty, a gracelessness compounded by the fact that his handball had stopped Ghana scoring in the first place. At that moment, he did not seem like a man who would be deflected from his aims by suburban morality.

From biting an opponent in Holland to the many, many events of his career in England, he has remained true to the impression he gave in Soccer City.

He is more likely to be driven out of Liverpool by the mediocrity. He wants the same things as Van Persie, even if the little boy inside Luis Suarez is a pest.

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- Dion Fanning