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In December 2023, shortly before signing for Grêmio, Luis Suárez warned that his footballing days were numbered. His right knee had become so painful, following a Covid-affected rehabilitation from surgery in 2020, that he could barely walk. “In my last stage of recovery, the pandemic came and I had to do exercises on my own and I couldn’t finish stretching my knee,” he told Uruguayan media. “On the inside I have cartilage wear and that hits the bone. The days before each game I take three pills and hours before playing I get an injection. If not, I can’t play. Hence the limp. I have to think that in maybe five years I won’t be able to play five-a-side football with my friends. The truth is that the first steps in the morning are very painful. Anyone who sees me thinks that it is impossible for me to play a game. My son asks me to play with him and I can’t.”
Suárez has always been a divisive figure throughout his storied career, with incidents that have wildly swung between the sublime and the repugnant, but most – excluding David Luiz, the nation of Ghana, Patrice Evra, Branislav Ivanovic, Giorgio Chiellini (11 years to the day!) and Norwich City – will agree that it is a good and remarkable thing that the striker is still playing football. Just how he is doing so for Inter Miami, 18 months on from his above comments, is baffling, particularly as 38-year-old Suárez is not only just hacking it around with his friends or his son, but still scoring absolute worldies on the biggest club stage of all [subs, pls check]: the Copa Gianni.
