Loved and loathed, Suarez on the brink of 100th cap
: For a player who has made so many headlines at the World Cup, it is appropriate that Luis Suarez will make his 100th appearance for Uruguay at football’s biggest tournament.
Barring any last-minute disasters the Barcelona striker will reach his century of games for the Celeste on Wednesday when they play Saudi Arabia in Rostov-onDon in Group A’s second round of matches. The match should be routine and could secure Uruguay’s passage to the knockout stage, but with Suarez football fans know that very few things are mundane.
The last two World Cups have seen Suarez exit in ignominy.
In 2010, the forward was sent off after making a last minute “save” against Ghana, which helped avoid defeat and saw his team progress to the last four.
In 2014, he was banned from all football for four months and fined after biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini, the third biting incident of his career. Uruguay players have hit out at the way Suarez was subsequently treated, but that has garnered little empathy.
Suarez is a player loved and loathed in equal measure; his
on-field behaviour has been questionable but not so his talent.
Despite the ever-present controversies, the 31-year-old is Uruguay’srecordgoalscorer,scoring 51 times in 99 matches.
Five of those have come in the World Cup and despite a sluggish start in Uruguay’s 1-0 win against Egypt, the match against a weak Saudi Arabia side may offer him the chance to celebrate his centenary in style.