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June 25, 2014Diamondbacks 9, Indians 8: Five games within a game
June 25, 2014Luis Suárez bit a man yesterday during a soccer match. That’s pretty weird…right?
I’ve wanted to do a lot of things to other people while playing against them, but never had I ever, even for a moment, considered cannibalism. See, athletes do all sorts of odd and “dirty” things on the field of play, but biters are kind of in their own category. Off the top of my head Mike Tyson and Toronto FC striker Jermaine Defoe are the only other two I can recall, though something tells me a hockey player has lashed out with his mandibles at a fellow employee once or twice at some point in NHL history.
Point is, biting doesn’t happen in sports all that frequently which is what makes Suárez’s case particularly intriguing. The man has already done this on TWO other occasions. A now probably bankrupt Norwegian gambling site had 167 people win a 175/1 odds prop bet that Suarez would bite someone during the World Cup. Last time it happened, he was banned for ten matches. That’s over a fourth of a season in a sport with a championship that is decided by whichever team has the best record at the end, no playoffs. His team wound up barely missing out on the league championship.
But Suárez doesn’t care. He just keeps on biting. And though we may never see another Triple Crown-winning horse, Suárez has unbelievably managed to complete his own Nom-Nom-Nom Triple Crown by sinking his teeth into a third victim, Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini and there were teeth marks to prove it. Not that one of two billion HD cameras pointed at the field wouldn’t have caught it anyhow. This wasn’t a Zidane headbutt where he charged the dude head-on like a ram. Suárez struck from the shadows like a Uruguayan ninja vampire.
Making it all the more bizarre is Suárez happens to also be one of the best soccer players in the world and just came off a truly remarkable season. He tied Cristiano Ronaldo for the golden boot which recognizes Europe’s most prolific goalscorer and the man doesn’t even take his own team’s penalties. He served eight games of his ten-game suspension for his previous incident THIS season. Oh, and he still led the EPL in goals and finished second in assists as well. But yeah, he bites people and that’s an act that’s hard to reconcile with the soccer viewing public regardless of your talent.
Can you imagine competing in a do-or-die game at the World Cup during a normal run of play when out of nowhere a dude just comes up and chomps on your shoulder? He then proceeds to immediately acts like you hurt him and starts rolling on the ground and acting way more hurt than you ever could even if someone chopped off your leg with a dull axe. The ref then comes over and blows his whistle, but he doesn’t really do anything due to the fact that he has no clue what just happened because he’s just some middle aged man running around a giant field for ninety minutes with world class athletes and he can’t possibly see everything that happens.
The natural reaction is outrage at injustice, especially in sports, and a desire to condemn. Taylor Twellman’s blazingly hot in-studio sports take was akin to the national media’s reaction when everyone was briefly exposed to Janet Jackson’s nipple during a Super Bowl halftime show—a complete freak out. He just couldn’t believe it, how could Suárez, or anyone, possibly bite another player? I think he thought Suárez’s fangs were laced with poison considering how appalled he was.
And to be honest, I was initially self-righteous about it too. My team had been robbed and Suárez must be some kind of human-animal hybrid to be gobbling on opposing players so often. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that I wasn’t at all angry that he nibbled on my man Giorgio like a piece of pizza, it was that the sneaky little bastard got away with it. And not only did he get away with it, but it somehow unsettled the Italian team. When it initially happened I had no clue what he hoped to gain from the incident or what provoked it in the first place, but regardless it worked. A mere minutes later my precious Azzurri conceded what was the goal that sent them packing from World Cup and I was left to the lonesome confines of my cubicle, restraining the urge to let out an office consuming reel of never-ending Suarez oriented obscenities. But I didn’t. Why? Because I realized three things:
- Chiellini probably deserved it as although he is a very good defender he is also prone to throwing his arms around carelessly and charging people over. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been subtlety introducing his elbows to Suárez all game. Chiellini and Suárez’ fellow star strike partner, Edison Cavani, have had extra curricular activity together on multiple occasions back when Cavani played in Italy for Napoli. Evidence: Case 1. Case 2. Making this whole situation all the more hilarious is that Suárez’ already tried to bite the very same Italian defender in last year’s Confederations Cup.
- From the perspective of my own livelihood I would much rather Luis Suarez give my shoulder a light tasting than Chiellini possibly giving me an unsolicited nose job via his elbow. Sure, biting is a bit deranged, but Suárez doesn’t actually do any real damage.
- If FIFA just had replay instituted or a second official like they should, and Suárez was justly red carded, I wouldn’t have cared about the bite at all as it would have been seen and dealt with. It would have ultimately helped Italy.
So you know what, I’m not mad at Suárez—he can keep taking a sneaky 3:00 p.m. lunch break mid-match. I’m mad at FIFA. Should Suárez have seen red for the bite in an ideal world? Of course. Any egregious and unnecessary physical contact should, but I feel like Suárez is getting singled out here if they do indeed ban him retroactively as that almost NEVER happens. If you’re going to retroactively ban someone for an incident you have to review everything, not just the hickeys. Hell, eventual goalscorer Diego Godín miraculously managed to avoid a second yellow and one game suspension despite elbowing English striker Daniel Sturridge in the throat to stop a counter attack. Suarez’s bite, while really bizarre to view, didn’t actually prevent Italy from doing anything in the moment and represented no real harm to the long term or short term health of the aggrieved player.
So seriously, leave Luis alone. The World Cup is more entertaining with the blood lustful superstar than without it. The guy plays the villain as well as Heath Ledger. He was an immaculate antagonist in what can safely be coined the “most dramatic game of the 2010 World Cup” when he intentionally prevented a Ghanaian strike from crossing the goal line with his hand near the end of extra time of the quarterfinals. He was appropriately red carded and a penalty was given, but Asamoah Gyan missed the ensuing penalty and Ghana would end up losing to Uruguay on penalties as Suárez celebrated feverishly in the tunnel for all the world to see and complain about in a collective disgust.
I was enthralled. If you haven’t taken the time to see the highlights from this match before, then please do, as it was absolutely an unfathomably tragic epic that would put Shakespeare to shame. FIFA need not waste time debating whether or not Suárez deserves a punishment. Instead they can try focusing their efforts on fixing the unfathomably inept officiating system that exists at the highest level of the most played sport in the world. Maybe they can use some of that bribe money. In the meantime let the watching world shower Luis Suárez with applause and roses while we wait to see what he has up his sleeve for an encore.
11 Comments
4. Sometimes you just want a little Italian.
I want him suspended for that ridiculous flop as much as the bite. Southern Euro flopping is the worst.
Chiellini probably deserved it
Not sure what one can do to deserve having a man take a chunk of one’s flesh with his teeth.
As a Liverpool fan, I look forward to the World Cup for the chance it gives me to root against this guy like the rest of the world. I’ve never disliked a player on a team I love to the extent that I dislike Luis Suarez. He’s an absolute superstar, and yet this sort of nonsense will ultimately be his legacy.
I don’t disagree, though having someone plunge an elbow into your sensitive areas a time or four may just qualify. Maybe.
“though something tells me a hockey player has lashed out with his mandibles at a fellow employee once or twice at some point in NHL history.”
Google Alex Burrows, my friend.
Chunk? It was a tiny bite mark.
Suerez bit hard enough to leave the mark and has taken chunks before. Do you think that was not his intent?
http://www.bloodymonday.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Suarez-Bite.jpg
As a dad, you’ll appreciate this one: the other day my 2 year old got in trouble at day care for biting his friend. My wife asked him why he did it, and he said, “I was playing dinosaurs too hard.”
Haha. Yeah, that will happen as 2yo’s figure out how to play and what parts need to be pretend or he may be a naturally gifted “method” actor if he can get that into character.
You can only play dinosaurs at one speed: FULL.