In Defence of Luis Suarez

It's been mentioned many times over the last few weeks, particularly by Steve Claridge on the Monday Night Club (BBC Radio 5 Live Sport), that in football, perception can mean a lot more than reality. This is, of course, true. I have been interested to note, therefore, the perception of Luis Suarez that is arising within the media and has been backed up by the Monday Night Club and, in particular, Ian McGarry. The story being concocted and proliferated is that Suarez is a "dirty player" or, as people in the game now say, a "cheat", and it is now virtually impossible to get through a Liverpool match or an episode of the Monday Night Club without some reference to this perception being made. Now, as far as I can tell,there are three main instances that are being used to furnish this belief, namely: the handball on the line against Ghana, Jack Rodwell's red card in the Merseyside derby and the penalty given against Jagielka in the same game. There were also instances that arose from the Utd game but I shall deal with them in due course.

Firstly, I can understand from Ghana's perspective how heartbroken they must have been to go out of the World Cup in the way that they did. I can also understand that from a neutral's perspective why some may have felt that they were cheated out of a place in the semi final. However in response to Ian McGarry's statement, "this is a man who put Ghana out of the World Cup with a handball and then went back to Uruguay and celebrated", meant as an indication that Suarez is of bad character, I'd like to make a number of points. Suarez is neither from Ghana, nor is he a neutral in anyway-he was a member of the Uruguay team and, as such, determined to do everything that he could to give his team/country the chance to progress in the finals. Following the handball Gyan had the chance from 12 yards to put Ghana through to the next round, the fact that he failed is not down to Suarez. The World Cup comes round every four years only and is the greatest and most important competiton on earth, he wouldn't be the first, nor even the 12th to bend the rules in order to give his team a better chance of progressing, remember Schumacher? What about Owen's dive in 2002 against Argentina? Then there's the Bilic vs Blanc incident from 1998, and there are countless other examples. As it is, Suarez made an instinctive reaction and batted the ball away with his hands, many others have done exactly the same in the past, he took his red card, sacrificing his place in a possible semi final in order to give his team a chance of progressing. As for celebrating, well who wouldn't? Uruguay finished third in the World Cup, pretty good for a team that nobody really fancied and he played a massive part in that, not just with the handball, but with his trickery, his skill, his determination and his goals. Why on earth shouldn't he celebrate? I would suggest that Suarez is of good character and plays the game the way it should be played, with a will to win, a determination to test himself against the best and absolute commitment. In contrast the player he denied on that evening in South Africa, Asamoah Gyan, came from the World Cup, signed for a Premiership club, played on and off for about a season, decided that he couldn't be bothered and set sale for a an Arab Sultanate with a vastly lower standard of football but astronomically high wages.

Concerning Jack Rodwell's red card in the Merseyside derby, to my mind, having seen the incident more than a dozen times, it's purely down to Martin Atkinson. I've seen his position, you have, we all have, he's right on top of it, and the red card is out practically before Suarez hits the ground. In response to Ian McGarrys comment "Suarez goes down like he's been shot, when in fact, no contact has been made", I urge you to look again Ian, because a blind man can see that while the Everton player's leading leg takes the ball cleanly, his trailing leg clearly comes through and catches Suarez with some force. Admittedly Suarez goes down a little theatrically, but so do all players nowadays (see Barcelona). The decision to send Rodwell off was purely down to Martin Atkinson, what he saw or thought he saw, and his interpretation of the rules and instructions given to him by the FA. Was it the correct decision? No. Was it Suarez's fault? No.

 

 

The penalty incident involving Jagielka in the same game, well, it was a pen, no question. Suarez sees the ball coming, nips in front of Jagielka and get's kicked. It's as simple as that. Jagielka was annoyed but Suarez was too quick for him, Suarez knows exactly what will happen and is waiting for it, but it does happen and it is a penalty, are we to condemn players for being clever and reading the game well now. I don't think so. Jason Roberts said recently on 5 Live Sport, "there is a massive difference between a player diving and a player going down easily", that is from the horse's mouth. Suarez doesn't dive, there is always contact, and to criticise him for going down easily is ridiculous, all players do, most of the time they have to, because if they don't, refs rarely give free kicks, and more importantly, penalties. It's my contention that defenders and managers are having a pop at Suarez publicly because he's too much for them. Their comments have been repeated in the media and this is creating a negative perception. In actual fact, the alertness that he displays and his undying energy together with his pace and skill make him a defender's worst nightmare, they can't afford to switch off for even a tenth of a second against him, and this wears them down. Rather than being criticised for upsetting defender's, his determination, desire and workrate should be applauded, isn't that what we want more of in the game?

The Man Utd allegations, I can't really comment on the racism claim, other than to say that Evra has made these claims before and they've turned out to be unproven, as I understand it. The referee didn't hear the alleged abuse and nobody has come forward to corroborate Evra's version of events. What I can say is that Suarez gave the Man Utd back four, incuding Evra, a torrid time, and in fact, ran them ragged. By the nature of the way Suarez plays the game, his speed, his close control, his ability to turn on a sixpence, his dribbling, he is naturally going to draw a numerous fouls (Woodgate resorted to rugby tackling him during the game at Stoke in the Carling Cup), so we shouldn't be surprised if he goes down a lot. As for Sir Alex Ferguson's comments concerning Suarez "diving all over the place", he know's exactly what he's doing by making that remark. He's adding to the perception that's been forming in the media, he's adding fuel to the fire, and hoping that referee's will think twice before awarding a decision in Suarez's favour in the future. It's worth remembering that this is the same man who defended Cristiano Ronaldo for all those seasons.

 

 

In conclusion, I'd like to point out that Luis Suarez is not only one of the finest players in the Premier League but also on the World stage. He played a major role in Uruguay attaining 3rd place in the 2010 World Cup, he was player of the tournament, scoring four goals, as Uruguay overcame their rivals to win the Copa America earlier this year. His performances and disciplinary record since joining Liverpool have been exemplary. Suarez brings something special to the game, the Barclays Premier League and to Liverpool, it is not only his talent that impresses, but his enthusiasm for the game, his determination, his will to win, his sheer exuberance and passion. He possesses what most don't, the ability to galvanise, inspire and lift a team to the next level, to peaks yet unclimbed. There is one player in my lifetime, that stands out for me as possessing these same qualities, played the game in the same way, with the same child like spirit, the comparisons do not end there, this player was also from South America, and coincidentally, caused a huge furore when he handled the ball at the World Cup. That was in Mexico in 1986, and he, was God!

Money-Two Justice-Nil

So yet again CSI or lack of it has yet again won the day in a high profile court case allowing Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to walk free from court, when in this blogger's opinion at least, they were in it upto their necks. What about real policework, detection and investigation eh? One thing is for sure, the police in Perugia involved in the investigation were adamant that both Knox and Sollecito were heavily involved in the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher.

There are several things that point to this, for example, the defendants changed their accounts of their whereabouts and activity on the night in question several times. When first questioned she claimed that she'd been at Sollecito's house all night , later on however, she decided that she couldn't be sure that she'd been at his house and that she may have been at the shared villa for some of the time. At one point, she even claimed to have heard Meredith screaming. It's a tad difficult to see how she confused these versions of events in her head given the circumstances don't you think? I mean surely a shock of that nature brings everything into clarity and you remember exactly what you've been doing, that is if you're not trying to forget I suppose. Sollecito for his part, confirmed that Knox had been at his home that night but that she may have come and gone, in other words, she could have been anywhere.

Then, there is the behaviour of the couple in the days immediately following the murder. This may seem harsh, but think about it, if you've just arrived home early in the morning to find your housemate, classmate and friend lying raped and murdered in the house that you shared, you would expect to have some kind of reaction, wouldn't you? Where was the shock, disgust, pity, fear that it could have been you the killer found that night or that possibly you could be next. None of those emotions or behavioural patterns were displayed by either one of the pair. In fact there is television footage showing Amanda Knox turning cartwheeels close to the crime scene and Italian police have stated that during interviews Knox seemed totally disinterested and during certain interviews sat on Sollecito's lap gazing at him and playing with his hair whilst giving evasive answers to the questions she was being asked. This does not sound like somebody whose world has come crashing down, somebody whose quiet idyllic life has been shattered by totally horrific unforeseen events. Again, it seems to me that, given the circumstances and assuming innocence, you would try to help the police in anyway possible, so that the killer would be found, your friend's family would be spared more grief and you could try to feel safe again and get on with life.

 Amanda Knox claimed in her appeal that her story changed several times because of police brutality and in fact claims that she was beaten into saying things that were not true. I find this hard to believe, and no physical evidence has ever been produced to back these claims up and in fact she had to face criminal slander proceedings because of the allegations.  During the original investigation Knox and Sollecito tried to pin the blame for the murder on Congolese bar owner Patrice Lumumba who employed Knox at the time and was known to both Meredith and the two future defendants. This lie ,however, was swiftly and openly exposed when upon questioning, it transpired that Lumumba had a cast iron alibi.

Then, there is the staged robbery at the villa, carried out to make it look as if Meredith was killed as the result of a botched burglary. Drawers were turned out, possessions were scattered, but nothing of significance was taken and most incriminatingly, the windows appeared to have been smashed from the inside. It would make sense to me that, if entering a house to rob it and encountering a resident, you then proceed to attack that resident in such a way that Meredith Kercher was attacked, making a lot of noise and a lot of mess, after the killing you might actually rob the house. Let's face it, if you are committed enough to kill the only resident (cos Knox wasn't there remember) and neither were the others, rather than flee the scene empty handed, you're gonna take anything you can carry, don't you think? Certainly there would be no reason to smash the windows from the inside, unless you committed murder and in a panic at what you had done, you made a crass attempt to cover it up by trying to make it look like robbery.  

 During the original trial an eyewitness placed Knox at the scene of the crime at around the time that the murder took place, at the appeal however, the very expensive, slick defence team attacked the credibility of this witness and therefore the reliability of the testimony. They succeeded. One man, Rudy Guede, now the only person serving a sentence for his part in the murder, has testified  under oath as to the involvement of both Knox and Sollecito in the perpetration of this atrocity. This testimony has now also been discredited. Why? It is because the Judge allowed the appeal jury to hear testimony from a "former cellmate" of Guede, himself a convicted child murderer, which stated that Guede had lied about the defendants. How can this evidence be reliable in the first place? It's hearsay, prison talk, it doesn't amount to anything! Secondly, you have to ask yourself why? Why come forward? Why, a convicted child killer, serving a life sentence, a man with no prior involvement with the case, a man with evidently no moral code at all, would come forward and offer this testimony in a court of law. What's in it for him? Why does he care? It doesn't make any sense! Unless, of course, either some kind of coercion, in the form of a threat against him, has been used, or more likely, good old fashioned bribery has been employed. The Italian police may want to check this guy's bank accounts over the next few years or check who pays his future legal fees.

The prosecution and particularly the detectives investigating at the time, made mistakes. Of that there can be no question. Some of the evidence was gathered wrongly, and cross contamination of the DNA samples may have occurred, however a request for re-examination of this evidence by the prosecution was thrown out by the appeal judge, a decision that left me baffled. The point though, that I will again re-iterate, is that while the literally blood stained knife or bra strap could not definitely prove the murderers' identities, it did not disprove them either, not only that, the police believed very strongly that they had the right people. Whilst of course they are not infallible by any stretch of the imagination, they are professionals, they deal with this type of scene on a regular basis, they deal with murderers often, and their absolute belief in Knox and Sollecito's guilt must, at least, be respected.

During questioning after the murder and during the first trial Knox displayed a tendency towards a Narcissitic personality, not only was no remorse shown, but no empathy with the victim's family, nor any kind of impassioned plea of her own innocence. Sure, she went through the motions, she said she didn't do it, but, having got that far, actually being in court, a totally innocent person would, surely by that point be beside themselves with emotion, desperately trying to make the court and the outside world believe their innocence; no? This did not happen at the original trial, in fact, it was conspicious by its absence. This time things were a little different. To Knox's hugely expensive defence team it will not have gone unnoticed that, because of her demeanour, she came across as cold and uncaring to the jury. They were not going to allow that mistake this time, Knox's perfectly stage managed final statement to the court in fluent Italian being a magnificent example. The question is ,why she was so cold and uncaring? Given the circumstances, what had just happened to somebody she had been sharing her house and, by her own admission, her life with. Why also, if not guilty, did she lie repeatedly? Changing her story from one week to the next, forgetting details and making up new ones as and when it suited her.

The vastly expensive PR machine and defence team that was constructed around the defendants, particularly Knox ,and the money and contacts used to keep that machine rolling and keep spinning Knox and Sollecito as the victims in all of this, could be matched neither by the prosecution team, nor by the Kercher family.  The skill of the defence team in focussing the entire case in the appeal on the technical evidence and problems with it over and above all else, has led to the release of the two defendants, an outcome which will sicken many. The unfortunate, in fact, tragic result of all of this is that the real victim, Meredith Kercher, and the spine chilling ordeal that she went through before her life was ended, has become a bit part, a side show, a minor detail in all of this. Naturally the Kercher family is crushed by the verdict because they realise now that they may never get justice for Meredith. Meanwhile the pair Knox and Sollecito are now free to continue their lives, in fact they'll probably make a fortune from selling their story for books and movies and the like. That is just what it will be however, a story, because, only they know what happened that night. They haven't told the truth about it yet, so I don't think they're going to start now!