As I reluctantly admit defeat and despondently reach to
close my laptop, there, in a blinding flash of nostalgic inspiration, a vision
appears before me, of a
jubilant Luis Suarez, reeling purposefully away from the Goodison goal he
has just caused to bulge, cheeks puffed out, swatting away his teammates with
the indifferent air of an all-powerful emperor, a curious look of malignant
amusement playing across his face, his mouth curling into the beginnings of a
smile as he careers towards the Everton dug-out, arriving at which he manages,
lord knows how, to dive sarcastically to
the turf below.
Just like that, the bare, barren screen of a few moments
ago, so nail-bitingly, jaw-gurningly blinding in its empty whiteness, suddenly
seemed an endless, vibrant world of opportunity to my grateful eyes. For, at
that very moment, I unexpectedly experienced an epiphany, as those few, short, seemingly
insignificant moments of celebration that I had recalled from that sunny Sunday
afternoon in October 2012, suddenly appeared to hold the key with which I could
unpick the riddle that is Luis Suarez.
For it becomes clear, as one watches his journey from penalty
box to opposition bench, that here is a man not, as one may expect, consumed
solely by the thrill of scoring a crucial, local-derby goal, but that he is also
a man hell-bent on making a stark and unequivocal statement to the Everton
manager who had, but forty eight hours earlier, and in no uncertain terms,
profoundly slighted him. No doubt as he races, like a dog freed from the leash
for the first time in many months, towards his adversary, Moyes’ implicit
accusations of his wilful propensity to cheat, con and generally dabble in
football’s dark arts, still ring loudly in his ears.
Yet a great many (indeed most) men, upon reaching the half-way
point of such a celebration, their tongue tingling with the tantalising taste
of imminent, sweet revenge, would probably, upon coming to the crunch, bottle
it. Not Luis Suarez. The idea of backing out, as he bounds across the turf of
one of his club’s sworn enemies, never crosses his mind. This much becomes abundantly
clear the moment he finally reaches his destination, the promised land of the
Everton dug-out, and leaps with the kind of gleeful abandonment generally seen
only in children, revelling in the fulfilment of an plan that had begun to form
on the Friday, fermented throughout Saturday, before finally coming to fruition
on Sunday.
As his feet fearlessly leave the floor we watch as he eyeballs
Moyes, pointedly continuing to do so until the moment of impact, when
footballer finally meets fescue.
For a few precious moments he revels in lying there alone,
prone, arms outstretched, face beaming unashamedly with smug satisfaction,
before being joined by his teammates. Yet, in contrast to Jurgen Klinsman’sself-parodying dive-celebration against Sheffield Wednesday, years earlier,
when his Tottenham teammates rapturously shared in his joy, Suarez’s Liverpool
colleagues, whilst undoubtedly pleased by the Uruguayan’s goal, appear somewhat
embarrassed, their customary congratulatory fondling of the goal scorer awkward
and rushed, seemingly relieved when they are able to walk away and leave the cameras
to hone in on their manager, Brendan Rodgers, who we find applauding politely, as if he is watching a good friend
starring in a poorly performed amateur theatre production. Uncertain where to
look, we are treated to the spectacle of a man plunged suddenly into the eye of
a storm not of his making, unsure whether to laugh or cry, inwardly wondering whether
anyone would notice if he were to text the Liverpool team’s bus driver to tell
him to start the engine so they could make a quick getaway, so avoiding the
inevitable, wearisome post-match inquisition.
Meanwhile, Rodgers’ Everton counterpart, David Moyes, can be
seen shuffling from his bench towards the still-prostrate striker, acutely
aware that he has become, before the eyes of the watching millions, the butt of
the joke. His is the facial expression equivalent of a man raising his arms and
exclaiming ‘Okay! You got me!’ He approaches Suarez as if he means to playfully
punch the Uruguayan’s ribs, ruffle his hair and sportingly declare that he’d
had it coming, now let’s let bygones be bygones.
Only he never gets the chance. Instead, the Everton manager
is left standing there on the touchline, his face covered in custard pie, as
Suarez nonchalantly turns his back and goes serenely on his way.
The whole thing lasts less than thirty seconds, but this is
all the time needed for Luis Suarez to leave a trail of baffled destruction in
his wake. He is the cartoon character that starts the brawl only to be seen
calmly sidling away, unscathed, from the ball of dust and flailing limbs his
actions have created.
This is a man that, it would appear, prefers not to waste
his time worrying about such things as consequences; a man for whom the law is
an ass and rules are there to be broken; for whom the act of clamping one’s
teeth into the arm of a fellow professional is just another acceptable means of
jostling for advantage on the field of play, no more outrageous than the humdrum
penalty-box pushing and pulling we have all learned to exasperatedly endure at
every set-piece. He is a man who shrugs his shoulders at an on looking public
left aghast by his actions, whilst simultaneously and shamelessly feigning
injury; a man who later described the effect his incomprehensively primitive
act had on the man whose bicep he chose to chomp as an ‘inconvenience.’
Now, having, personally, never been bitten, deliberately or
otherwise, by a fully-grown man, I fear I am wholly unqualified to describe
that moment when, feeling an unusual sensation in your upper arm, you turn your
gaze to the offending limb, only to be confronted by the unimaginably repulsive
sight of a fellow human being mauling you like a deranged beast. I expect my
response to such a gruesome attack, namely, a swift and savage beating
inflicted on the perpetrator, followed by an impassioned plea to the relevant
authorities that the offending brute be put down, probably chimes with the overwhelming
majority of those that have watched the incident.
Suarez’s victim, Branislav Ivanovich, to his eternal credit,
somehow managed to resist reacting in this way. He has, quite rightly, been
lavished with praise for his measured response, though I can’t help but wonder,
given the look on his face that was caught on camera at that very moment that
he realised what was happening (a curious mixture of shock, horror, repugnance
and disbelief), whether the surreal, this-can’t-really-be-happening-on-a-football-pitch
nature of the event simply caused his mind and body to momentarily cease up,
his only remaining instinct to retreat from this dangerous, disturbed, and
clearly-unhinged individual.
There is no doubting Luis Suarez’s wizardry with a ball at
his feet. He is one of those rare handful of players gifted, sparingly, to we
mortals, through the ages, by the footballing gods, that we may watch him in
wonder and bask in his brilliance and declare that this is why football is called ‘the beautiful game;’ because of
players such as he!
Yet, despite all his unquestionable talent, I simply cannot
comprehend the cacophony of calls for this man to be accepted as just another ‘flawed
genius.’ I don’t care who you are, or how talented you may be at your
profession, biting one of your fellow
men is a disgusting and despicable act that renders all the sublime skills you
may possess an irrelevance.
I’ll leave you with that split-second snap-shot of Branislav
Ivanovich’s reaction that I mentioned, which sums it all up with more eloquence
than I could ever hope to express in mere words.
