In a gripping Champions League quarter-final first-leg tie, Barcelona came from behind with two Luis Suárez goals to beat Atlético Madrid 2-1 in a pulsating encounter at the Nou Camp.
Luis Suárez has always been a footballing villain, both in the pantomime “dirty player” sense and in the very real abusive sense.
Still somewhat unrepentant for his racial abuse of Patrice Evra, any analysis of him as a player must always come with a reminder that he has done something reprehensible and is not sorry that he did it; he does not get to perform outside of the scope of that act.
But he does get to perform, which is just as well for Barcelona because he has been the difference-maker for them in what is now the biggest game in Spanish football. In the last three matches against Los Colchoneros, Suárez has scored or assisted the winning goal in a 2-1 win. Tonight he went even further and scored both goals, bailing out the Blaugrana in a game where the MSN failed to fire as a unit in their regular fashion.
Their interplay was sensational when it came together, with the players finding each other in miniscule spaces, but it rarely worked amidst a packed Atletico rearguard.
Messi played deeper, just as he did against Real Madrid, and was a great reference for Luis Enrique’s men, but Atléti made sure he was denied a clear look at goal and bar his unreal attempt at an overhead kick that crept just wide, he didn’t bother Oblak in the slightest.
Meanwhile, Neymar was at his dazzling best on the ball, all perceptive passes and daring dribbles, throwing Atléti defenders off-balance for fun (his body feint on 51 minutes will be the subject of a thousand gifs and vines going forward), but his shooting radar was so off he could have played for 10 hours and still not troubled the scoresheet.
So all eyes turned to Suárez. The Uruguayan came into the game on a complicated run of just two goals in his previous six games for club and country. Although to be fair one of those goals was an absolutely stunning flying volley against Arsenal.
Still, it was much as the chances he missed as the goals he did score. Even against Arsenal he was incredibly wasteful across both legs and his miss at the start of the weekend’s El Clásico, when Neymar left him with a simple finish into an empty net that he somehow failed to even make contact with, was just absurd.
So when Barcelona found themselves 0-1 down at half-time and his only contribution to the match was somehow having escaped a red card for kicking out at Juanfran, Barça fans were right to be worried. Suárez always seems to be battling his primal side, especially when frustrated; Atlético Madrid definitely had him frustrated.
He was barely involved in the game. No shots, no chances created, only one of his three take-ons had been successful. But as all great strikers do, and he is surely a great striker, he never stopped battling the mighty Atléti defenders.
He was rewarded for his perseverance when he found himself in the right place at the right time to tap-in Jordi Alba’s mishit cross. He had drawn Barça level on the night, but he wasn’t done.
He kept on hassling and hunting for another goal. All the defenders felt his wrath: Juanfran, Filipe Luis, Lucas Hernández and his countryman Diego Godín, Suárez rumbled with them all, constantly lurking on their shoulder and fighting them for every ball. With 70 minutes gone he was booked for shoving Filipe Luis to the ground, another villainous act that that could have been red.
Four minutes after avoiding his second red card of the night, Suárez got his second goal when he capped off an outrageously good team move. Following two Sergio Busquets and Lionel Messi passes, Suárez popped a pass out wide to Dani Alves then surged into a space behind Godín to meet Alves’ pinpoint cross and thump a header into the net, wrong-footing Oblak and giving Barcelona the lead and the win.
The victory was enormous, as the Blaugrana are now able to take a lead back to Madrid for the second leg next week. Luis Suárez may have gotten incredibly lucky with the refereeing decisions, but his goals were the hallmark of a truly world-class striker who lives on the edge of what is normal, both in a sense of behaviour and footballing ability. He is unquestionably The Bad Guy, but he will always be there, fighting and almost willing his team to win The Big Game.
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