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Luis Suarez was a wonderful footballer for Liverpool, but one with a troubled streak. It doesn't take much guessing to figure out which aspect the English press latched on to for a foreign player starring for a team much of the country loves to hate, and for three and a half years Suarez had to deal with media descriptions of him as a half-human monster who hated everything and wanted to bring down the proud English game from within.
Admittedly, Suarez didn't do much to help himself in that area, with two incidents of him biting a player after joining Liverpool, a racism row with Patrice Evra, and a handful of other minor incidents like flipping the bird to Fulham fans. Still, with the constant vilification Suarez faced, it was little surprise that he was so eager to leave in each of the last two summers before ultimately departing for Barcelona after the World Cup.
Now he's in the papers again in England, with Barca in the middle of a Champions League tie with Manchester City and Suarez himself coming back to Liverpool during the upcoming international break to play for Team Gerrard in Steven Gerrard's not-a-testimonial testimonial at the end of this month. Of course, Suarez being Suarez, he's coming on the wings of yet another controversy, after being accused of biting Martin Demichelis during the first leg of Barcelona's tie with City.
Suarez, for one, is well past sick of how he's treated in England.
[English papers] published images of me [next to Demichelis] in the morning and when they saw that that was false those images disappeared off the pages.
I said enough and that they [need to] leave me alone and that I went because I was tired of them, but yet they are still looking (for me).
I don’t know if there is a campaign of the English press towards me, but it can be seen that they miss me. They criticise me so much that they look for something that is not there to draw attention.
-Source: beIN Sports via The Guardian
The emphasis added is ours, and it's very important. Suarez just said, flat out, that he left Liverpool on his £75 million transfer to Barcelona because he was tired of dealing with the constant flak he took from the English media.
Some will criticize him for that, calling Suarez weak for not putting up with the abuse he was constantly shoveled under, but can you really blame him? With a wife and children to think of, why would he stay in an environment that was making him miserable?
Suarez said later in the interview that he and his family are loving life in Barcelona, so it seems that the move has worked out for him. The important thing in life isn't to just make buckets of money at your job, it's to be happy. If you can make buckets of money while being happy, that's awesome, and far, far preferable to making that money while being miserable.
So thanks for making Luis Suarez miserable and driving him to Spain, English media. We owe you one for that.
