Luis Suarez’s Latest Meltdown is his Worst Yet | OneFootball

To the naked eye, Luis Suarez’s latest spat pales in comparison to some of his previous controversies. But it’s actually among the worst of his offenses, if not the worst of them all.

In Inter Miami’s 3-0 loss to Charlotte FC over the weekend, Luis Suarez found himself in a familiar place: the bench, on suspension.

Since making his professional debut in 2005, Suarez has missed more matches due to suspension (65) than injury (54), and there’s reason to believe that his latest antics are his worst yet.

At 38, Suarez has cemented his status as one of the greatest center forwards in football history. Nicknamed “El Pistolero” (“The Gunman”), Suarez has won the Golden Boot in La Liga, the Premier League, and Eredivisie, scoring over 500 goals for club and country and finishing as the top scorer in Europe on two occasions. Only three South American players have scored more goals than him (69) in international football — Pelé (77), Neymar (79), and Lionel Messi (112) — and only Diego Godín (161) has more Uruguay caps than Suarez (143). But while Suarez is universally renowned as an all-time great striker, he’s garnered even more worldwide recognition for his controversies.

The first signs of his wild side came in 2003, when he was still in the youth ranks for Nacional. The 16-year-old Suarez had scored 63 goals that season, one shy of a club record. But when he was shown a red card that prevented him from playing in the season’s final match, thus erasing his chance to make history, he exploded in anger, head-butting the referee and causing his nose to bleed profusely.

Over the following two decades, there have been a number of indiscretions from Suarez, including getting sent off on his Uruguay debut and coming to blows with Ajax teammate Albert Luque in the middle of a match. But undoubtedly his most memorable action came in the summer of 2010. Ghana and Uruguay found themselves headed for a penalty shootout until the 120th minute, when the Black Stars’ Dominic Adiyiah fired a shot towards goal. It would have gone in had it not been for Suarez sticking two hands up and preventing the ball from finding its way into the back of the net.

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Suarez received his marching orders and Ghana was handed a chance to score a last-second winner to become the first African team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup semifinals, only for Asamoah Gyan to squander his opportunity. Uruguay would prevail on penalties.

Over the next four years, Suarez’s brilliant play was only matched by his penchant for scandal. He was found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra during a match against Manchester United in October 2011, with the FA handing him an eight-match suspension and a £40,000 fine. A few months later, he saw a one-match ban for giving Fulham supporters the middle finger.

However, the majority of his incidents have seen him get off empty-handed, at least at first. He did not see any retrospective punishment for getting Sunderland’s Jack Rodwell sent off with an inexcusable dive, leaving his cleats on Wigan’s Dave Jones, or eliminating Mansfield Town with a handball goal.

Perhaps most concerningly, however, were the bite attacks, plural. The first came when Suarez sank his teeth into the shoulder of PSV’s Otman Bakkal in November 2010, an incident that would cost him his Ajax career.

Three years later, he pulled off the same exact stunt against Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanović, and once again, received no punishment from the referee. It wasn’t until afterwards that he was docked a 10-game suspension by the FA. And yet, despite his mounting moments of madness, Liverpool continued to stand by their Uruguayan striker and fought to keep hold of him amid interest from Arsenal and other clubs.

They were richly rewarded with an epic 2013-14 season that saw Suarez win the Premier League Player of the Season and Golden Boot. He guided Liverpool to the verge of the league title, only for them to cough it up at the final stretch to Manchester City, and he established himself as one of the best center forwards in the game.

Prior to taking part in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Suarez told the late journalist Grant Wahl: “I want to change the bad boy image that has stuck for a bit because I don’t think I am at all how I have been portrayed. I would like that to change because it’s awful to hear and read what is said of you. On the field, sometimes passion overwhelms you and you do things you regret afterward. At the same time, you have a chance to learn from those things.

“I think I [have] been a role model since last summer; I have been professional, and I have the desire to forge ahead and play well regardless of what is said to me. I’ve had some attitudes on the field that weren’t very good for my image. But those weren’t really me — outside the field, I’m very shy. I realized I had to adjust my attitude on the field, to continue to play well, but without the bad attitude.”

After rushing himself back from a knee injury, Suarez returned to action in Uruguay’s second match of the 2014 World Cup and scored a brace in a 2-1 win against England, before starting in the third and final group stage clash against Italy.

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Unlike Uruguay, who needed a win, Italy only needed a point to advance to the knockout rounds. The score was 0-0 in the 79th minute when Suarez, battling Giorgio Chiellini for a cross, decided to take a bite out of the Juventus defender’s shoulders. Once again, Suarez stayed on the pitch, with Uruguay scoring shortly after to book their ticket for the knockout round. He was handed a nine-match international ban, the longest in World Cup history, and he was also banned by FIFA from taking part in any football-related activity (including entering any stadium) for four months, and fined 100,000 Swiss francs.

At 27 years old, El Pistolero found himself at last-chance saloon. He needed to clean up his act once and for all and find a way to put a lid on his competitive fury and his incessant will to win. He did just that in Spain, maturing into a far more even-keeled individual and helping Barcelona win four league titles and a UEFA Champions League trophy, before guiding Atlético Madrid to the apex of Spanish football after a seven-year title drought. Suarez then returned to boyhood club Nacional in 2022 for a few months before making the move to Brazilian side Grêmio, where he won the Golden Boot award as well as the Golden Ball.

After a brief sojourn in South America, Suarez headed north for Florida ahead of the 2024 MLS season, linking up with former Barcelona teammates Messi, Jordi Alba, and Sergio Busquets. He thrived in his debut campaign with 25 goals and 12 assists in 37 appearances across all competitions, helping Miami achieve the best regular season record in MLS history, and he’s followed that up with 13 goals and 16 assists in 40 matches in 2025.

Suarez wasn’t just continuing to compete at a high level — he was actively preventing his competitive instincts from going into overdrive and ensuring that the second half of his career was devoid of the heinous incidents that plagued him throughout his time in England, the Netherlands, and Uruguay. However, on August 31, Suarez finally allowed those emotions to get the best of him.

Rather than tasting their second Leagues Cup trophy in three years, Inter Miami received a dose of humble pie in Seattle, losing 3-0 in front of a sold out Lumen Field. No sooner than the referee’s final whistle did Suarez start chatting with Seattle’s Obed Vargas before putting his arm around his neck.

Vargas initially thought Suarez was being friendly, only for him to realize that Suarez’s embrace was actually a headlock. The situation devolved into an ugly post-match melee, one which saw Busquets connect on a punch with Vargas’ chin and which also saw Suarez spit on the face of Seattle’s staff member Gene Ramírez.

To the naked eye, this may not seem like a worse action than head-butting a referee, racially abusing a player, or biting three (!) different players. However, taken with the full context, it is Suarez’s most heinous action yet. Thanks to his inability to control his temper, what should have been the Sounders’ moment to celebrate becoming the first MLS team to win every available piece of silverware turned into a chaotic brawl involving both players and staff.

Whereas Suarez’s previous incidents had come in the midst of a match, this time, they came after it. Suarez wasn’t overcome with his desire to win, he was simply a sore loser, unable to countenance the fact that a team without any veteran blockbuster stars could outplay Miami and beat them on the biggest of stages. Spitting on anybody is a cowardly, despicable action, but doing so on an older man in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is simply unforgivable.

More than anything, though, Suarez’s latest undertaking is the worst because of his age. At 38, he knows that he doesn’t have much time left as a soccer player, having already retired from international play a year ago. It seemed that he had put his demons in the rearview mirror, and finally realized that he had crossed the line one too many times. And yet, after hibernating away in his inner psyche for 11 years, the beast returned in Seattle and reared its ugly head.

It’s cost him a six-match Leagues Cup suspension, as well as a three-match MLS suspension, with Suarez set to miss out on Miami’s upcoming fixtures against Seattle and D.C. United. As Miami looks to shake off a woeful run of form that has seen it win just one of its last four league matches, the club will have to make do without its starting No. 9.