Although it is always difficult to fight against the current proliferation of images, in color and from all angles, Luis Suárez Miramontes (A Coruña 1935, died yesterday in Milan at the age of 88) is a strong candidate for the positions of honor on the list of the best Spanish footballers of all time. At the age of 18 (previously it was prohibited), he made his debut in the First Division with Deportivo in December 1953. And he did it in no other way than in Les Corts, in front of an unstoppable Barcelona who prevailed by six to one.
As soon as the match ended, the great Barça player of the time, Laszy Kubala, alerted the Barça board and, with his still rudimentary Spanish, told them: “It’s very important to sign this 10. He has everything: game vision, you know change the ball, very good”.
Years later, Kubala added that what impressed him the most that day was that Suárez caressed him more than biting the ball. Luisito’s Barcelona career was about to begin.
Suárez played for Barcelona from 1954 to 1961 (176 official games, 80 goals) and marveled with his agile, fast, effective style, with great dribbling, millimetric passes and a formidable shot. A game organizer who ended up being known as the architect. Those who saw him play retain the memory of some of his improbable goals, even collecting the ball from the defense and dodging opponents in a slalom of cinematic elegance to stand in front of the goalkeeper and beat him. With justice, in 1960 the France Football magazine, through a vote of European journalists, awarded her the Ballon d’Or, the first and still today only one won by a Spanish footballer (Alexia Putellas has achieved it in the women’s category).
In an interview with this newspaper, he explained a few years ago that he always had the feeling of deserving another Ballon d’Or, “in 1961 and 1964, already at Inter, I finished second. In 1964 I won everything: the Italian league, the European Cup, the Intercontinental Cup and, with Spain, the European Cup. But…” In that triumphant edition of 1960, after Suárez (54 votes) there were Puskas (37), Uwe Seeler (33), Di Stéfano (32) and the goalkeeper Lev Iaixin (28).
Even Pelé, on the occasion of a Santos friendly at the Camp Nou (Barcelona 4-3 with Luisito as conductor) had some words of praise: “I may be more of a scorer, explained O Rei, but he is undoubtedly faster.” Suárez was an advance in the modernity of football.
Suárez’s career was accompanied in his best years, at Barcelona and at Inter from 1961, by the magician Helenio Herrera, the coach who knew how to make the most of his qualities. No one better than HH to leave written that Suárez “was the direct heir of Di Stéfano. Disciplined, exemplary life and great team organizer. He was not only a superclass, he was also a brave and willing player: when the Kubala, Czibor, etc., washed their hands in the opposite field, Luis Suárez ended up full of blues”.
With Barcelona, ??Suárez won the League twice, the Cup twice and the Fairs Cup twice more. But his end was sad. A cainite division opened between him and Kubala (on the part of the fans and the press, not between them), and in the face of a dire economic situation, Barcelona, ??chaired by a management board of circumstances, accepted the fabulous offer of the ‘ Inter Milan and transferred Suárez for 25 million pesetas, the highest amount ever paid for a footballer. It had cost Barça half a million pesetas seven years earlier. The sale of Suárez, the first due to economic imperatives in Barça’s history, was a tremendous mistake that deprived the Blaugrana club of much of the best years of the Galician footballer.
Already at Inter, Suárez contributed to the conquest of three leagues, two European Cups and two Intercontinental Cups. He hung up his boots at Sampdoria, aged 38, and went on to become a long-serving coach, including the Spanish team at the 1990 World Cup.
“Kubala helped me and taught me many things, we even went to train together in the afternoon, on our own”, explained Suárez defending his friendship with the Hungarian footballer. The Blaugrana fans, marked by sentimentality, resisted seeing that Suárez was the perfect replacement, the future, and that Kubala was running out of time. It is also true, although it is usually overlooked, that once the importance of the financial offer that Inter made to Suárez personally became known, the player, fed up with so much controversy at the Camp Nou, was one of the most interested in a change of scenery and pressured the management to accept the transfer.
Suárez’s last game as a Barcelona player was the fateful final in Bern, in which Barcelona lost the European Cup against Benfica (3-2) on 31 May 1961. Directly from the Wankdorf Stadion, the Galician footballer took a plane to Italy, where Herrera was waiting for him with open arms.
Despite settling definitively in Italy, Suárez never lost his Galician accent or the peculiar sarcasm in his assessments, as was easily verified until recently in his radio collaborations.
He also never forgot his origins, and in his early years at Blaugrana it was not unusual for him to spend part of his holidays delivering meat to the family business in A Coruña or playing ball with children on the beach.
With the same roots in the city that welcomed and trained him, with another Blaugrana footballer, Goicolea, he set up a knitwear business in the Corts neighborhood, Goicosua.
