Liverpool icon Luis Suarez hints at retirement in sad fitness update
Jurgen Klopp astonished by four incredible Liverpool goals
Luis Suarez has suggested that he could now be close to retirement after the former Liverpool striker played his last game for Brazilian outfit Gremio on Sunday evening. The 36-year-old Urugayuan international announced his departure from the club last week and is now a free agent. Suarez went out in typical style, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win against Vasco da Gama.
He has been linked with a move to Major League Soccer side Inter Miami, where he would be reunited with his former Barcelona teammate and close friend Lionel Messi, but comments from Suarez himself suggest that he could be at the end of the road when it comes to playing professional football.
Suarez said: “I can feel pain, my body is speaking for me. I want to enjoy and then decide for myself after a long career. I need to rest, enjoy my family… then the destiny will know where I’ll be in the future.”
Suarez received a big send-off from both his teammates and supporters on Sunday, in a packed-out stadium. The forward was joined on the pitch by his children – sons Benjamin and Lauti and daughter Delfina – where he received a hero’s farewell.
The veteran scored 27 goals in 52 appearances during his time at Gremio, leaving manager Renato Gaucho admitting that the Urugyuan would be difficult to replace.
Speaking after the match on Sunday, Gaucho said: “Are we going to miss him? Certainly, without a doubt, he is very loved by everyone. I had the pleasure of working with a great professional, one of the best in the world, fourth highest scorer in the world. This void will remain for the next year, because it’s not easy to find someone of his talent and ability.
“When you find someone else, it’s unfeasible to bring him in financially. Unfortunately, as I said before, it was very difficult for him to stay. Everyone wanted it, but only he could reverse this decision.
“Unfortunately, he will leave and there will be this vacuum in Gremio’s attack. Then it’s up to the board and president to try and find another striker. It was a great pleasure, not only for me but for the whole club. A guy who always gave himself, an exemplary professional.”
Suarez’s career has been littered with success and an incredible goal record. After first moving to Europe in 2007, he scored 111 goals in 159 appearances for Ajax, winning the Dutch league once before moving to Liverpool in 2010.
It was during his time at Anfield that his profile sky-rocketed and he established himself as one of the most feared strikers in European football.
Suarez scored 82 goals in just 132 appearances and led the Reds to the brink of their first league title in 24 years in 2014, just falling short at the final hurdle, but that did not stop him from winning both the PFA Players’ Player of the Year and the Football Writers’ Footballer of the Year awards.
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After joining Barcelona that summer, he went on to enjoy the most successful period of his career alongside Messi and Neymar, winning four La Liga titles and the Champions League.
When Suarez left the Nou Camp for Atletico Madrid in 2020 he had scored 198 goals in 283 appearances for the Catalan club, but he simply carried on scoring goals at his new club and won a fifth La Liga title with the capital outfit that season.
After further spells at boyhood club Nacional and Gremio, Suarez has scored 487 goals in 799 career appearances. Whether he will continue elsewhere to make a landmark 800th appearance remains to be seen.
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