Calm down suarez

London: Luis Suarez returned to football in Liverpool's game at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Monday, having served his eight-game suspension for racially abusing Patrice Evra. He did so as a divisive figure.

On Merseyside, many fans have stood resolutely behind him and sung his name after the 2-1 FA Cup win over Manchester United during his ban. But while he can expect solidarity at Anfield, so he can expect hostility on tour, starting at Old Trafford today.

Few neutrals will have much sympathy, while the partisans will relentlessly probe Suarez for a reaction, as happened when he swore at fans at Fulham before his suspension. In his first year at Liverpool he has proved himself a formidable talent, but can he continue to show this positive side of his game in the face of hostility? How will Suarez cope with his pariah status?

Looking into his past, Suarez emerges as a complicated, contradictory character, a ferociously driven player who inspires loyalty in teammates and coaches, yet one who has repeatedly transgressed boundaries of acceptable behaviour. His fusion of anger and talent is both the source of his strength and his weakness. Suarez grew up in the slums of Salto, one of seven siblings. Aged seven he went to live with his grandmother in Montevideo, the capital. When he got there he immersed himself in street football. His father Rodolfo and his brothers Paolo and Max all played to a good level. Luis was soon picked up by the Nacional academy and, even in his teens, his technical ability was allied to a resolute ruthlessness.

Mathias Cardacio, a friend from the academy, tells the story of when they won 21-0 in a youth team game. Suarez scored 17 of them. "Uruguayans never accept defeat," Cardacio said. "But Luis is different to everyone. He never thinks he has won. He always wants more."

Cunning player

The technical director of Nacional, Daniel Enriquez, said that coaches had a tough time taming Suarez. In one game, when he was 15, he apparently lost his temper with a referee and butted him. Fortunately for Suarez, his older brother Paolo mediated and helped talk some sense into the errant adolescent. The acceleration of his development was remarkable and he was soon in the first team.

He possessed what in Latin American football they call ‘picardia', a cunning or craftiness needed to gull the opposition. At 19, he scored in both legs of the championship play-off to win the Uruguayan title in 2006. A move to Europe beckoned and, as his girlfriend Sofia's family had relocated to Barcelona, the move could not come soon enough.

His destination proved somewhat unexpected: the northern Dutch university town of Groningen. The club had a reputation for a brilliant scouting network but Ron Jans, Suarez's first coach at Groningen, explained that his signing was a bit of a fluke. "This was the most crazy transfer we ever made," he said. "The director and the technical manager had gone to Montevideo to look at a different player."

Having been given a three-week holiday, he turned up at Groningen, in Jans's words, "a little heavy". He was promptly put in the reserves to get fit. "He was a real character," Jans said. "He hated it when he found out he was going to have to play in the second team first. There was one training session when he was doing nothing. I brought the whole group together and said to Suarez in front of them: "You promised 100 per cent and you are doing nothing." I saw in his eyes he could kill me.

Great relationship

"After the session I told him to come and see me alone. The first thing I did was say ‘sorry'. He was surprised. I told him: ‘I should not have shouted at you in front of everyone. But now, you have to promise me that you'll train 100 per cent'. That moment helped make it a really great relationship." While at Ajax, Suarez's battle with officialdom was established, the cards coming as fast as the goals: in one typical spell in January 2007 he was booked three times and sent off once, but also scored four goals.

To get to Ajax, Suarez had taken Groningen to the Dutch Football Association's arbitration committee and, while they found in Groningen's favour, Suarez's desire to leave brought a compromise and a €7.9 million (Dh38 million) fee was agreed.

He became tremendously popular at Ajax and his goalscoring ratio went through the roof (he scored 111 in three-and-a-half seasons). His club form was replicated with Uruguay and he was one of the outstanding players at the 2010 World Cup. Then came the quarter-final with Ghana.

Saving a goalbound effort with his hand was bad enough, but his wild celebrations after the ensuing penalty miss, broadcast worldwide, did not go down well in a continent seeking its first African semi-finalist at its first home World Cup.

Suarez was apparently disappointed by the perceived lack of support and a few months later he moved to Liverpool. The pattern recurs. His talent continues to flourish at ever higher levels — he was the player of the tournament as Uruguay won the Copa America last summer — but in those moments when competition consumes him, he seems unable to prevent himself transgressing.

At 25 he needs to show that he is learning from his mistakes. It will not be an easy road.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2012