The striker never ages
Suárez left the national team last winter, immediately after a disastrous performance at the World Cup in Qatar. Luis and his partners could not reach the playoffs, although before the start of the tournament some experts classified the Uruguayans as one of the contenders at least for the semifinals. It didn’t work. Although in the last group match the South Americans beat Ghana (2-0), this was not enough. Suárez cried on the bench after the match and no one could console him.
It seemed that the great striker’s career was heading towards its logical conclusion. At the end of 2022, Luis moved to the Brazilian Gremio, but a few months later in an interview he stated that he was thinking of retiring from the sport due to chronic knee problems. All this time Suárez played with injections, he suffered. Nothing foreshadowed the forward’s return to the national team, but Louis once again surprised everyone.
Suarez has been in incredible form this season, scoring 23 goals and providing 16 assists in 39 appearances. Gremio is in third place, just three points behind the championship leader, Palmeiras. A week ago, Luiz did something incredible: he scored a hat-trick in 19 minutes in the match against Botafogo (4-3).
It should be noted that Suárez will return to the national team for the match against Argentina, in which his best friend, former Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi, plays. By the way, in the near future Luis and Messi may meet again in the same team: the Uruguayan is negotiating with the American Inter Miami.
“Messi and I dreamed of finishing our careers together; we planned to do it even when we played for Barcelona.” By the way, he was still thinking about the United States back then and I liked this option too. “I hope he and I can play for the same club,” Suárez said.
Italians want revenge
The European qualifying phase is coming to an end. The last qualifying matches for Euro 2024 will be played until the middle of next week. There are several intrigues in the selection. The main one is whether the current winner of the trophy, the Italian team, will be left out of the final phase of the tournament.
The Squadra Azzurra found themselves in a difficult situation. Two days before the end of the cycle, Luciano Spalletti’s team occupies third place in Group C, competing with Ukraine for the right to a direct ticket to the Euro Cup. As you know, the two best teams in each group advance to the final phase. At the moment, the Italians have ten points and the Zhovto-Blakyts, who have played one more match, have 13. This means that to maintain a real chance of taking second place, Italy needs to defeat North Macedonia. The task is not the easiest, especially taking into account the history of confrontations between these teams.
It is with North Macedonia that one of the worst pages in the history of Italian football is associated. Blagoya Milevski’s modest team, which occupies 66th place in the FIFA rankings, sensationally beat the visiting Squadra Azzurra in a play-off match and did not allow the four-time world champions to attend the world championship in Qatar. It is not difficult to guess how shocked the Blues fans were, and Roberto Mancini’s charges received a lot of punishment from the press.
The torment of the Italians with North Macedonia continued in the current cycle. In the first match between these teams in Skopje, a 1:1 draw was recorded and the locals came back in the end, scoring in the 81st minute. If it were not for that loss of points, Spalletti’s players would have been behind the Ukrainians not by three , but by one point, and even with one game less.
It is not surprising that Italy is awaiting the next meetings with caution. “I can’t say who will be more difficult: North Macedonia or Ukraine. There is fear, but we will overcome it together. In the match against England (1:3) in October, despite the defeat, I saw a lot of rays. “The team was not in complete darkness,” Spalletti said.
Let us add that at the moment nine of the 24 participants in the final phase of Euro 2024 are known. In addition to Germany, which will automatically participate in the tournament as hosts, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, Turkey will definitely play in the Euro Cup , Austria and England.
