These are the figures of the Cavani-Suárez duo 1:01
(CNN Spanish) --
When Luis Suárez celebrates a goal, he gives a kiss to the marriage ring that he wears on his right hand and then to three fingers, which he later raises, alluding to Delfina, Benjamin and Lautaro, his children with Sofia Balbi.
What many do not know is that Sofía, in addition to being his partner since they were just teenagers, is a powerful reason behind the striker's success, the reason that led him to jump from the inferiors of the Uruguayan National team to the Netherlands when he was barely 18 years and from then on to the conquest of Europe.
Luis was 15 years old and Sofía was about to turn 13 when they met.
At that time, according to the soccer player's stories, he neither studied nor was applied to soccer.
He played nonchalantly in the lower divisions of Nacional, where at 14 they had already given him an ultimatum: either he changed his attitude and improved his performance or there was no longer a place for him on the team.
Her family struggled to support themselves financially and the current star of the national team, meanwhile, tried to get some money by taking care of cars with her grandfather and collecting used and empty phone cards that a man she knew bought.
Then Sofia came into his life and, as he said in a recent interview on Channel 10, he put "his feet on the ground".
"I didn't study, I had dropped out of high school and she forced me to study and made me pass the year," recalled the sky-blue top scorer, who could play his last World Cup in Qatar.
Sofia did not become only his girlfriend.
She also became his guide.
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But then the bad news arrived: in 2002 the young woman went with her family to live in Spain, in search of better economic opportunities while Uruguay was going through its worst economic crisis in recent decades.
Suárez remembers every detail of the separation.
"The night before we cried all night," she recounted in this interview.
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Back then, phone calls were expensive.
But they managed to continue communicating.
The relationship did not cool down.
One day she called him and said: "If you don't come in December, we'll leave it. I can't take it anymore."
The problem was, of course, money;
but Suárez got it and went to visit her.
That was her first time in Europe, in a city that he would conquer years later: Barcelona.
Suárez knew that the only way to be closer to Sofía was to go to Europe.
And that is why she accepted when they made her an offer from Groningen, a Dutch team that until then had been unknown to her.
What mattered to him was that Holland was closer than Uruguay to Spain.
"I made the decision that Sofia was also there near her and it was an important step to be with her," he recalled.
She, still a minor, went with him and in 2009 they were married in Amsterdam.
They haven't parted anymore.
Luis Suárez kisses Sofía Balbi after Nacional's victory over Liverpool of Uruguay on October 30, 2022 in Montevideo.
(Credit: Dante Fernandez/AFP/Getty Images)
An unparalleled football career
Now Luis Suarez acknowledges how the Netherlands experience shaped him.
"The best thing that can happen to you is leaving South America, going to play in Europe, in Holland. It's the best school," he recalled recently.
At Groningen he played the 2006-2007 season and then moved on to Ajax, where he quickly became a star and team captain.
The World Cup in South Africa arrived, in which he was a semi-finalist with the Uruguayan team after a quarter-final match against Ghana that neither team will forget.
They were tied, in extra time, and Suárez intercepted with his hand a ball that went straight to the Uruguayan goal, which led to a penalty missed by the Africans, thus saving the temporary tie and then ensuring Uruguay's victory in the final penalties.
Suárez was given a red card, but Uruguay triumphed.
He was the hero.
From Ajax he jumped to Liverpool in England which, for the Uruguayan, "is the best league in the world."
He was already a world star.
But his novel would have another twist in the plot: shortly before the World Cup in Brazil, in 2014, a hard tackle from a rival player hurt his knee.
He had to undergo an intervention and undergo a recovery period that seemed impossible.
However, against all odds, he was able to play in that World Cup, where he made his debut with two goals precisely against the English team.
And when their World Cup history was once again written in gold letters, another twist: the following game with Italy, where Uruguay sealed qualification for the round of 16, the bite of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini and the draconian suspension from FIFA of nine games and four months of disqualification.
Suspended and condemned, England and his league had become unbreathable for Luis Suárez, where they did not forgive him for his attitude.
So he mutually decided to change the scene.
And he left, for a bargain price, to no less than Barcelona.
The city where he had met his sweetheart as a teenager and where he had always wanted to go.
And then he continued to climb to the top, rung after rung, and in Spain began his time of greatest soccer brilliance: FC Barcelona.
After six years, dozens of goals and multiple titles with the azulgranas, the striker moved to Atlético de Madrid, which would be his last Spanish team to date.
Uruguay fans at the 2018 Russia World Cup match between Uruguay and France at the Nizhni Novgorod stadium on July 6, 2018. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images)
His track record in Europe is impressive.
He holds five titles as the top scorer in European clubs, including two golden boots as the top scorer in the entire continent.
He was five times champion of the Spanish league (four with Barcelona and one with Atlético), won a Champions League and a Club World Cup, as well as 4 Copa del Rey and two Spanish Super Cups with Barça, among other titles.
The celestial marks of Luis Suárez
In parallel, Luis Suárez became an essential figure of the Uruguayan team and its all-time top scorer.
He debuted in the sky blue in the qualifiers for the World Cup in South Africa, where he scored three goals and was the main squire for the Ballon d'Or of the competition, Diego Forlán.
He then won the 2011 Copa América, where he was the tournament's top scorer and best player.
Later, the fateful World Cup in Brazil 2014, the suspension of almost two years to return to play with his team —which included two Copa Américas without playing—, and his triumphant return to the World Cups, with two goals and a fifth place in Russia 2018 .
In total, Luis Suárez will arrive at the World Cup in Qatar with 7 goals in World Cups and 68 in total, which makes him the top scorer in the history of the glorious Uruguayan team.
Atlético de Madrid, his last European team and his redemption
Playing for Barcelona was "a dream come true" for Suárez and he more than fulfilled that dream: he is the third all-time top scorer for the culé team (198 goals) and formed an anthology striker alongside the Argentine Lionel Messi and the Brazilian Neymar.
However, in September 2020, the "dream he had since he was a child" ended, as he said.
At 33 years old, Ronald Koeman, the coach who had just arrived at the Barça bench, decided that he was expendable and the club terminated his contract.
“You deserved to be fired for what you are: one of the most important players in the history of the club, achieving important things both as a group and individually.
And not get kicked out like they did.
But the truth is that at this point nothing surprises me, "wrote then his friend Leo Messi, also at that time faced with the club's leadership, from which the following year he also ended up leaving.
Luis Suárez breaks down in tears during farewell tribute 1:10
Suárez left in the midst of tears from the culé team.
But Spain would quickly give him revenge: Atlético de Madrid arrived, where the Uruguayan was key to giving the "Aleti" that Spanish league 2020-21.
Uruguayans from all the teams united by a passion
The following year, in 2022, a statement by the Uruguayan when he had already been released from his contract with Atlético shook Uruguayan football.
"I am surprised because the leaders of Nacional did not even call me to find out my situation," Luis Suárez told the newspaper
El Observador
days after his contract ended and amid speculation about a possible trip to River Argentina.
Immediately a multitude of fans of the team in which Suárez began his career joined in a network campaign under the hashtag #SuarezANacional that became a worldwide trend.
fans tweeted.
Official and opposition politicians tweeted.
They even tweeted supporters of other teams.
And the question of “Who is Luis Suárez” among English-speaking tweeters who did not understand the trend was not lacking.
That led the “tricolor” leaders to take steps and offer Suárez a three-month contract to prepare in Uruguay for the World Cup in Qatar.
Three weeks did not go by and the dream came true: Suárez confirmed that he was playing again in his country.
And he returned to Uruguay, which received him even with a caravan of cars and flags, to stay in the game and shortly after give Nacional the title of Uruguayan champion.
Thousands of children and adults who until now had seen Suárez kick the ball only on television and with the light blue have had the opportunity to see him on the field, playing for the same team that saw him take his first steps and fueling the illusion of a World Cup where the light blue will once again be a source of pride for its more than three million faithful followers.
Luis SuarezUruguay national team
