Suarez - The Hand of Satan?

Diego Maradona. Thierry Henry. Luis Suarez?

Hours after Uruguay beat Ghana on penalties in their 2010 World Cup Quarter Final match, it would seem, judging from some people’s reactions, once again a villain for life has been made in the form of Luis Suarez. The obvious comparisons have already been drawn with the aforementioned ‘super villains’ and on a superficial level it’s not hard to see how some have reached this conclusion. As ever with football, such matters are not so clear cut.

So what actually happened? In the final seconds of a match that had been for the best part an open and exciting contest, albeit one which by the end had slowed as legs tired, Ghana’s Adiyah, following a shot that had already been cleared off the line, headed what looked certain to be the goal that would take an African team to their furthest ever point in the tournament’s history. Again, the ball was cleared off the line and it looked as if Uruguay had escaped, only for it to transpire that Suarez had in fact cleared the ball by blocking it with his arms. A clear transgression was punished with an exact application of the law. Suarez was off and Ghana now had the (2nd?) chance to make the last kick of the game the winning goal. A formality surely, that would see Gyan crowned African hero and history maker and send thousands watching live in Accra into unexpected, unheard of ecstacy. Only, it didn’t happen that way. Gyan blasted his shot against the bar and the final whistle signalled nothing more than the beginning of the penalty shoot out. Uruguay duly won (despite having just lost one of their key penalty takers) and Ghana were out. End of story…?

Of course it wasn’t…

Before embarking further, I shall point out that prior to the match I had wanted Uruguay to win. Having always had a soft spot for South American teams since Maradona’s genius enthralled me in Mexico 86, I was rooting for a team who were already way ahead of anything they had achieved in recent history and who finally seemed to be playing well. At the same time, however, I would have been equally happy to see Ghana go through and not just because they were the ‘plucky underdogs’, but because I had been genuinely entertained by their football in the tournament so far. Just before the penalties began I did tweet that I really didn’t wish to see either team eliminated, but then someone always has to lose.

My take on events at the time are as follows. Firstly, I totally understand why Suarez did what he did. It’s not difficult to place yourself in his situation. Your team is on the verge of a World Cup semi final…only you’re standing on your goal line and the ball is coming towards you. You can choose to do nothing and see your country eliminated…or you can do something that will have potentially huge consequences for you personally, but could throw a life line to the team. You know that you will almost certainly be sent off, face possible vilification and even then, knowing a penalty would be awarded, not have changed anything. But when you know the alternative for sure and know the consequences of that non action, what do you do? On this occasion, Suarez chose to do something and that something was to break the rules and we all know how it then all played out.

Let’s just imagine for one minute 2 other possible outcomes:

Gyan scores the penalty:

Ghana are through to the World Cup semi final…justice is done! Suarez’s desperate last minute action has changed nothing and Uruguay go home the deserved losers. Ghana, the moral victors, carry the hopes of Africa one step closer to the impossible dream.

The handball isn’t seen:

Ghana lose on penalties and video replays show Suarez’s handball. Outrage floods the tournament and shades of Maradona and Henry darken the whole spectacle.

But herein lie 2 key issues.

1. Ghana had a penalty. They missed that penalty. They had the chance to right the wrong themselves and failed. Suarez was sent off. He will now miss the semi final and possibly the final if Uruguay were to progress. So while there are cries of injustice, this is down to Ghana failing to take their chance…OK so they were denied their 1st chance, but they weren’t denied the 2nd opportunity, they simply didn’t take it.

2. The infringement was seen (kudos to the officials for spotting it). In Maradona and Henry’s case, the incident was not spotted at the time and so the wronged team had no comeback, no sense that the game was being played fairly. In both cases, the victims ended up with nothing but a sense of bitterness and injustice and rightly so. In Ghana’s case, they will still feel they have been wronged and one can easily argue that they have the right to, but they did get their comeback under the laws of the game and unfortunately, they negated it themselves. What else could the officials do? The transgressor was sent off, the correct remedial action was taken, but it didn’t work out how it “morally” should have done. There have been calls for a goal to be automatically awarded in these situations, but this is just unrealistic if one examines it in any close detail. The argument goes that, as it was definitely going in, then it’s logical a goal should be awarded. But where does this stop? How can anyone ever prove that the ball was ‘definitely’ going to end up in the back of the net? In Suarez’s case, it could be argued that had he not raised his hands, the ball would actually have hit his face, such was the direction in which it was travelling. Who can then say for sure that a goal was a guaranteed outcome of this scenario? And this in what many would claim to be a ‘cast iron’ case…


And so we come to the vilification of the man and I can’t help feeling there is a certain amount of jingoism in some of the accusations flying around. Many times tonight I have heard the words cheat or cheating prefixed or suffixed with ‘South American’, as if they somehow have a monopoly on foul play…of course, all South American players are dirty cheats cos that’s their culture innit. Well yes, there’s Maradona of course, and Rivaldo (but then he’s Brazilian, that’s not ‘proper’ South American…we like them). Then there’s Henry of course…OK so he’s French, but then, hey, typical French cheats eh! And of course there was that Owen fella who kept diving to get penalties…wait, he was English…ah but he dived against Argentina who are from South America so that was just giving them a taste of their own medicine.

There is of course, one other key difference, as made succinctly by @twofootedtackle on twitter: ‘Deception and sacrifice are different’. What Suarez did was against the rules and one can easily argue, against the spirit of fair play, but so is simulation; so is getting someone sent off when you know they don’t deserve it…but what Suarez did wasn’t deception. He wasn’t trying to lie to anyone. He reacted to a situation he saw as unthinkable and no doubt acted in sheer, last throw of the dice, desperation. And he did so at great personal cost. I’m fairly sure he will receive an extended ban due to pressure on FIFA and one can argue for and against the rights and wrongs of this forever.

I’m not defending what Suarez did, though I do defy anyone in his position to do any different. But all this is irrelevant. Suarez is already a villain and maybe the best he can hope for now is to become a forgotten man. A sad end to a spirited team’s progress and a great player’s tournament.