Luis Suarez journeys from World Cup villain to Champions League hero

The numbers reflect the shift in effectiveness from both players. Messi scored 23 before New Year’s and 35 after, his partner doing so three times before Dec. 31, and 22 times in the five months since. Suarez changed Luis Enrique’s Barcelona, helped them to evolve and become more dominant against the strongest opponents. Losses to Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid in the first half of 2014-15 were a distant memory by the time they swatted away Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich in the Champions League semifinals, with two goals from the Uruguayan across the tie.
On Sunday, the forward’s coach hailed him as one of the club’s greatest signings, and the impact the player has had on the team as a whole supports that theory. One of the biggest challenges for Luis Enrique was to bring effective pressing from the front back to the Camp Nou. In Suarez, Barca have finally found a central striker who relishes that side of the game as much as Samuel Eto’o once did. His importance even extends to defending corners, where a natural thirst to win the ball makes him an obvious choice for the role of protecting the near post.
One such defensive header against Juventus saw Suarez race to the other end of the pitch and draw an excellent save from Gianluigi Buffon. Quality in both areas in the space of the same move, it was an excellent summary of everything that the striker does well for his team.
As for the shot Buffon was unable to deny, Suarez’s goal wasn’t necessarily spectacular from a visual perspective, but it was in its timing. The strike arrived in the middle of Barca’s poorest period of the game, a stretch where they seemed to abandon the patience that had functioned so well in the first half and began to lose all of their individual battles with Juventus. When Dani Alves finally won one of those individual duels with Paul Pogba, the ball eventually broke to Messi, who drew defenders toward him before stinging Buffon’s palms with a strong shot. Suarez came steaming in like a freight train to fire home the rebound, getting to it before Ivan Rakitic, who would have had his own chance to attack the initial parry were it not for the overpowering electricity of his teammate.
The desire Suarez showed to latch on to that spilled shot before anyone else summed up the attitude injection he has given Barcelona. After the final whistle, he spoke to Spanish television of sensing that his team needed a goal at that particular moment if they were going to calm down. So it was that in a psychologically low period of the game for the Blaugrana, where they were too frantic, Suarez delivered oxygen, breathing space and ultimately, the Champions League.
In the postmatch flash interviews, Javier Mascherano reminded everyone that Suarez came to Barcelona with the express purpose of winning European club football’s most important trophy. The competition is an obsession that is never far from the striker’s mind, and it was no doubt a presence in his thoughts while he trained on his own as the aftershocks from the World Cup continued.
In less than a full season of football since then, he has already played a key role in helping Barcelona to achieve the maximum possible. Opponents must dread the thought of next year, when Suarez will have a normal preseason and a full campaign to leave his mark.