Luis Suarez - The Biography of the World's Most Controversial Footballer

Book excerpt: He's the best striker in world football today - but also the most controversial. Banned three times for biting opponents - including the shameful episode with Italy's Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil - Luis Suarez has also been embroiled in a race row with Manchester United's Patrice Evra and been public enemy number one at the 2010 World Cup after handballing on the line in Uruguay's quarter-final against Ghana.Yet on the field he has brought only goals galore and glory to every team he has played for. At 18 he was in the first eleven at Uruguay's top club Nacional and played a major role in their 2006 league triumph. Then he captained Ajax Amsterdam to Dutch Cup glory in Holland and transformed Liverpool into a titlechasing team in 2013-14. Almost miraculously, Suarez then overcame an ankle injury operation to kill off England with two wonderful goals in the 2014 World Cup.It was the prospect of such remarkable feats that encouraged Spanish giants Barcelona to offer a mind-boggling ?72million for his services in the summer of 2014 - despite his four-month ban for biting Chiellini. Yet what exactly makes this brilliant, but flawed, man tick? What demons lie behind his 'cannibal' acts, his cheating and his frequent bust-ups with fellow pros, and the clubs and managers who fall over themselves to employ him? Just why is Suarez incapable of steering clear from controversy?In this first-ever biography on the Uruguayan superstar, renowned footballing biographer Frank Worrall reveals the good, the bad and the downright ugly traits that define Suarez the footballer and Suarez the man. Here is the inside story of how a troubled boy from a poverty-stricken neighbourhood became the most coveted striker in world football today. How he had to overcome crushing setbacks at every stage of his life: the heartbreak of being abandoned by his father when just a boy, being forced to leave behind his friends in his beloved hometown El Salto for the soulless Montevideo and watching his sweetheart, Sofia, walk away from him.From King of the Kop to World Cup pariah, both hero and villain - this is the full, undiluted story of the footballing phenomenon known as Luis Suarez.