Three questions linger after Luis Suarez got a 10-match ban from the English FA for biting Branislav Ivanovic. Is he staying with Liverpool and in the Premier League after his second huge suspension in the kingdom? Did he deserve that kind of lengthy punishment? Is he going to learn from what he’s done?
History tells us that no. Luis Suarez is an exceptional talent, one of the best strikers in the world, scoring 23 league goals this season when he finally seemed to partially be putting his past behind him, trying to fight his natural instincts of diving and other dirty antics.
But a look at this video tells us that it’s not the first time that it has happened. Not just biting, which has happened as well, but the diving, which is appalling at times, although it seems that the ban from giving him calls that he benefited from when fouled or not seems to have disappeared. Yet Suarez will once again lose any kind of trust from referees when he returns to the Premier league pitches, if he returns.
And there are the hard fouls – dirty tackles, stepping on hands “unintentionally” and more. My first thought after the suspension was that he was screwed by a hypocritical system, that prefers players trying to break ankles and shins with two legged tackles than having players bite others, which hardly does any damage at all.
But Suarez has a problem, that goes beyond “cultural” differences as sometimes that excuse seems to be thrown in the air. Maybe it’s about anger management, maybe it’s simply about over excessive competitiveness, with Suarez taking it too far, and no one around him (family, teammates, manager), telling him it’s not OK.