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.

A Life In World Cups

It’s 2010...there’s a World Cup on this year...which, aside from alienating me from the entire family as I settle in for up to 3 matches a day, also causes me to think back over my life. Why? Well, for me, the World Cup was a pivotal event in my life in many ways. Primarily, it was what sparked my interest in football (prior to Mexico 86, I’d had eyes only for cricket, a sport I now care little for), but it also occurred towards the end of my life in Primary school...a time made extra poignant by my own daughter being at that exact stage in life. Thinking back over this, I realised I have always used World Cups as a measure of time in my life. This may seem a strange (and perhaps football centric) way of viewing one’s life, but, given they occur every 4 years, serves as a nice time span to track the passage of my life. Before writing this, I had the idea that my 1st few WCs would show the largest change, spanning as they did, the time between me being 11 to 19, therefore covering a period where my age nearly doubled. Looking back through my life, however, it’s clear there has actually been huge changes between each and everyone one, which I was quite surprised by as the 1st 18 years of my life seemed to take an age, whereas the last 17 seem to have passed at an ever increasing rate. So...here is a short summary of my life and how each WC seems to have been a milestone in my life in more than just football.

1986 Mexico

I was 11 years old and in my final weeks of Primary School. For me, this is the stage in life where you truly begin your transition from child to adult. A clear line in the sand where all that went before has gone and all that lies ahead is strange, exciting, scary and above all, all grown up. Having watched my step daughter change from child to mini teen in these last 12 months brings home what a year in one’s life this really is. And on the other side of the world something was happening...I caught glimpses of Denmark and the USSR handing out late night (GMT) thrashings and suddenly football seemed exciting. The bright TV pictures from sun drenched stadia, the brightly coloured kits, the skills on show truly captivated me. After watching England play Poland, needing to win to stay in the tournament, my brother and I would recreate all we had seen in the back garden, in the warm evening sun, until bath time called. I guess I see these days as the last of my childhood. Naturally, for the first year at secondary school a lot of this freedom was retained, but it was different...there just wasn’t that same sense one gets from having no responsibility at all. And this would be brought rather sharply into focus by the time Italia 90 arrived...


1990 Italy

Then in my 4th year at secondary school, life was understandably different and fittingly, the drab and dark World Cup that was Italia 90 seems sadly befitting. The fantastic new stadia that provided the stage were to be the best part of the whole affair. In life, by this time, I was being bullied quite a lot in school. For some reason, the class psycho had decided I’d ‘grassed him up’ about something I didn’t even know about until one of his mates told me he was going to kill me. I subsequently found out it was one of my friends who had, and when confronted, decided to name me as perp instead...thanks for that! In the intervening years I’d also had my best mate team up with a new best mate and suffered there too and by the end of the year someone else decided it was fun to hit me a lot whenever the teacher was out of the room. Overall, however, life was OK...In all honesty I had a nice childhood; possibly the most normal childhood attainable, but this particular chapter gave me the first glimpse of how life is not always so easy. By the time the final rolled around, I was out of school, the last 2 weeks of term spent with BT doing work experience, which pretty much meant riding around in the vans in the sun, then being dropped off at home at noon as it was easier all round. A short respite of summer before heading back to school...just in time to find that 2 of the blocks had been burned down. A forgettable tournament and a forgettable year. Next stop...USA!


1994 USA

Possibly one of the biggest leaps in my life was between Italy and USA. In 1990, I was in the first year of my GCSEs...when USA 94 finally arrived I was just completing my first year at Uni. 4 years and 12 qualifications after I’d said ciao (sorry for the cliché), and I’m sitting in a pub drinking cider (I wasn’t doing that at 15 either) with my older Bro and 2 of his friends, watching Germany (yet another change...no longer just the West half) in the opening match of the 1st ever World Cup to be held in the land of “soccer”. While football purists the world over poured scorn over the idea of America hosting the event, I secretly was glad...mostly because I wanted another Mexico...another World Cup where all the games played out under burning sun, not the faded glint of floodlights. And once again the event seemed to mirror my year as what started out bright and hopeful ended in moribund disappointment as Brazil and Italy contrived a final as dull as that 4 years previous and my year took a similar turn as my friend failed his 1st year and left me missing a huge part of the fun my 1st year had brought. As my 2nd year began, the initial novelty of Uni life turned into a cycle of lectures / mooching round town / going home alone and questioning whether this was what I really wanted to do.


1998 France

The World Cup returned to Europe and with it, fears of another Italia 90. It was not to be as the tournament provided several electrifying moments, the most literal of which being when my dad replaced a floorboard in my house (I was now a homeowner) and nailed through the mains cable in the bathroom. Washing my hands moments later, my foot connected with the nail and my hand the tap...ouch. Anyway, as mentioned, I was now a homeowner. Homeowner, employed, partnered up (not quite married yet...that’d be the year after...as would the arrival of my daughter). So, in my 23rd year I would seem to have pretty much all the trappings of modern life (minus a car...that would be next year too) and again, life mirrored cup as both ticked along rather nicely and while the competition ended with the home nation despatching Brazil while their star walked in the wilderness, heralding a new dawn for French football, so too did a new era begin for me as I learned I was to become a father...


2002 Japan / South Korea

A World Cup of unity, the coming together of 2 nations for one purpose, a footballing marriage one might say (if one was building up to make a particular point perhaps)...and as with life, as some things begin, others end as by the end of the year, my own marriage was now just a footnote in my own personal history. Seems Ronaldo would not be the only one getting The Golden Boot... (sorry...that was just an awful pun).


2006 Germany

4 years later and I am once again married and now with an extra 2 children on board so all is great right? Well maybe, were it not for the fact the whole tournament was viewed whilst being made redundant from the job I’d had for 8 years, an experience I’d not like to repeat. If ever there was a greater contrast between my life at any point and back to that first world cup in Mexico, this would have to be it. The carefree child of 11, looking ahead to his whole life, still realistically wishing to be an astronaut or a pilot (assuming I couldn’t be a footballer of course) and the responsible child of 31, feeling the pressure and need for employment and undergoing a whole range of thoughts and emotions around not being needed, not having a purpose and not being able to support my family. As Germany 2006 fizzled out in yet another penalty shoot out, my year improved. A job was secured at the 11th hour and thankfully, I’m still there, the children are happy and healthy.


2010 South Africa

And so we come to the present and the 1st ever World Cup in Africa, a cause for celebration in itself...though, given the events surrounding the last 2 World Cups, makes me ever so slightly nervous over what might appear on the horizon this time round...