Luis Suárez left the pitch at Córdoba’s Estadio Nuevo Arcángel on Saturday afternoon with the match ball under his arm following an 8-0 victory that kept Barcelona top of the league table and said that it was “time to think about Bayern Munich” in the Champions League. Bayern Munich were already thinking about him, his former Liverpool team-mate Pepe Reina, the Bavarians’ back-up goalkeeper, describing Suárez as a “street player” whose personality has been fundamental to his success.
Meanwhile, the Bayern midfielder Javi Martínez has paid tribute to Xavi, for whom Wednesday night is likely to be his 155th Champions League game, and his last at the Camp Nou. At the end of the season the 35-year-old world and double European champion with Spain and three times European Cup winner with Barcelona is expected to walk away; the next month will decide if he does so with 25 major trophies or whether he can add to that total.
“For Spanish football, for us, it has been a joy to have him,” said Martínez, who played with Xavi for Spain. “I don’t know if it is official yet [that he will go], but it is a pity that players like him have to grow old. And with the quality that Xavi has, he could play until he is 50.”
Xavi is in his 17th season in Barcelona’s first team; Suárez is in his first, at 28. Reina said the only surprise was that it has taken this long for the Uruguay striker to join one of the game’s super-clubs. Others have been surprised at how impressive he has been after a difficult start, which was delayed for three months by the Fifa ban that also means he will miss the summer’s Copa América in Chile, prompting Reina to note: “It’s football that misses out. The rules are what they are but a player like Luis Suárez is someone you want to see out on the pitch.”
Suárez’s first hat-trick as a Barcelona player on Saturday took him to 24 goals in all competitions and 16 in the league, 15 of those in 2015. He has provided 18 assists in total and scored twice at the Etihad against Manchester City and twice at the Parc des Princes against Paris Saint-Germain. Any doubts about his role and whether he could integrate alongside Leo Messi and Neymar have gone, with much made of his work-rate and lack of selfishness. The trio have scored 108 goals between them.
“Luis deserves it, he has fought for it,” Reina said. “He has had incredible seasons everywhere he has been [at Nacional, Groningen, Ajax and Liverpool] and because of that, because he performed year after year, he got the move to a huge club. Maybe it took longer than it should have, because he has deserved it for a long time.”
Reina continued: “He’s the kind of player that I especially like. He’s a ‘street’ player and I mean that as a eulogy. He’s alive, he’s always on the edge, pushing, he’s a born winner. In every training session at Liverpool, I wanted to be on his team, always. He always gritted his teeth, he never, ever gave anything up for lost. I think that’s a huge part of the reason that he is the player he is today.
“He finishes very well. He can produce a play in very little space, doing the kind of moves that only he would even think of. And beyond [enjoying] his talents as a player, I consider myself lucky to have been able to get to know Luis as a person. It’s not just at Barcelona; I think wherever he goes he will build good relationships with his team-mates because that’s the kind of person he is, and that helps you to settle and integrate.
“But,” Reina said, “we’re talking a lot about Suárez and he’s not the only one that worries us; there are others.”
Such as Messi, for example? “That guy’s not bad, either,” Reina replied.
