At this point, it has become a familiar scene: An Inter Miami training session mobbed with photographers, their shutters snapping away at the club’s embarrassment of riches. First it was the arrival of Lionel Messi, to many the sport’s greatest-ever player, and a pair of his oldest and closest teammates and friends, Barcelona and Spain national team stars Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.
Today, under the warm Florida sun, it was Barcelona and Liverpool legend Luis Suarez. A few weeks after being announced, the Uruguayan turned out for Inter Miami’s first training session of the 2024 preseason.
He walked out in a training kit alongside Messi, his close friend and teammate during a memorable six-year spell at Barcelona in which the club won everything imaginable. It felt, as it did with Alba and Busquets, like Messi was shepherding Suarez into the fold, showing him the ropes a bit. The two knocked the ball around before joining Alba and Busquets for warm-up drills.
The site of the four former Barcelona players reunited — running through small-sided games and fitness work in the shadow of the tiny Fort Lauderdale stadium Miami continues to call home — did feel a bit surreal. In these four players, Inter Miami has on paper assembled the greatest collection of talent ever seen in MLS, and arguably the greatest in the history of American club soccer.
Suarez, though, arrives with some question marks. His current form is not one of them, though: the 36-year-old is fresh off a season with Brazilian side Gremio, where he won the Brasileirão’s golden ball, the equivalent of the league’s most valuable player award. His production was staggering given his age — 27 goals and 17 assists across all competitions. In his 53 matches, Suarez gave fans in Brazil a taste of his glory years at Barcelona and Liverpool. His positioning remained elite, as did his eye for opportunity. While no longer the world-beating forward who could charge at a team’s backline from midfield, Suarez remained a joy to watch.
GO DEEPER
'Like watching an alien play with humans' - Luis Suarez's year in Brazil with Gremio
His health remains a concern, however. Prior to joining Miami, he spoke openly about his knee issues, a long-standing problem that has only worsened.
“The days before each game I take three pills and hours before playing I get an injection,” he told Uruguayan radio outlet Sport 890. “If not, I can’t play. Hence the limp. I have to think that in maybe five years I won’t be able to play five-a-side football with my friends. The truth is that the first steps in the morning are very painful. Anyone who sees me thinks that it is impossible for me to play a game. My son asks me to play with him and I can’t.”
Miami is hopeful that Suarez has enough left in the tank for one more magical year, which is precisely how long his contract with the team lasts. Suarez, you sense, still feels motivated. His competitive edge has never been in question — if anything, he has been known, for years, as a player who sometimes fails to tame it. After training, Miami head coach Tata Martino said Suarez’ qualities remain clear enough.
“We finished (training) with 20 minutes of football,” said Martino. “It was obvious, in those 20 minutes, that the four of them (Messi, Busquets, Jordi Alba & Suarez) have not forgotten how to play together. It was 20 minutes of beautiful football.”
Moments later, Suarez met the U.S. media, sitting down for his first press conference as an Inter Miami player. Here, The Athletic dives into his remarks, and what they mean. Suarez’s answers have been translated from Spanish.
How is he feeling after a day of training, and what does he aim to accomplish at Miami?
Luis Suarez: I’m happy. This is a new challenge, a new team that has several objectives which I’m really excited about. I think football is just about challenges that you have to meet, and I think Inter Miami offered me a lovely opportunity to dream of winning an MLS (Cup), something the club still hasn’t done. And, well, to come to a club that has huge players, a club the entire world already knows. I’m just adjusting, fitting in with my new teammates at this new club. I’m motivated, like I said, by the challenge, the goal for the club this year, which is to win a championship. All I can do is try and do what’s expected of me here, and the offseason has served me well to prepare me for what’s coming this year.
Last year’s Leagues Cup title was Miami’s first. That tournament, which did not exist prior to Messi’s arrival, certainly served as an important public relations exercise for Major League Soccer and also showed real flashes of promise in terms of its future relevance. To many American soccer fans, though, Miami still hasn’t won anything of note, something Suarez seems keen on changing.
How Suarez’ presence affects Miami’s prospects on the field remains to be seen, but the Uruguayan’s point — that Miami is already a global name — does feel at least partially true. People in far-flung corners of the world are currently walking around with pink Messi shirts on, soccer fans who may not have even known MLS existed two years ago. Whether they’ll stick around after Messi, Suarez and the rest of the bunch are gone, remains to be seen, though.
How does he feel about reuniting with three other players from Barcelona’s halcyon days? He was shown the following social media post and asked for his thoughts on it:
Suarez: It’s wonderful to remember big moments we lived through together at Barcelona, the club we all dreamed of playing for. I think it’s another reason for me coming here, is to reunite with them. But more than anything, all of us are very ambitious, we are professionals and we’re dedicated. We want to try to show the great young talent that Inter Miami has here that age doesn’t matter. What matters is the sacrifice you make on the pitch. And off the pitch, to try and help those young players when we can, as well. That image is a nice one, that can maybe inspire people, and now it’s our turn to hopefully inspire people with our play on the pitch.
Miami does have its share of young talent — Argentine-American midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi, for example, and 21-year-old Facundo Farias. The club has a number of other homegrown players, young professionals who suddenly are sharing the locker room with four of the greatest players in modern football history. It’s hard to quantify just how valuable that is to their development. Major League Soccer has a lengthy history of attracting aging megastars and, similarly, the league’s young players have a lengthy history of benefitting from their presence.
Messi, Busquets and Jordi Alba tried to show that age doesn’t matter for a while last season, and they succeeded for a while. But then injury and fatigue caught up as they were asked to play a staggering number of matches in a short period of time during a failed bid to drag Miami into the MLS playoffs. Only time will tell if Suarez can help put them over the top in achieving that task this season and four aging stars can succeed where three couldn’t.
Did he ever imagine this reunion?
Suarez: Honestly, no. I never imagined it because I thought that Leo would finish his career at Barcelona, a club where he’s always been appreciated, a team where he achieved everything he wanted. Sergio (Busquets) too. And Jordi (Alba) too. But football is full of changes. Sometimes you imagine one thing… In 2018, 2019, we were winning everything there was to win at Barcelona and we dreamed of retiring there. But then I went first. And the rest of them left behind me (laughs.) But reuniting says a lot of our friendship, it says a lot of how well we know each other on the field, as well. We’ll try and enjoy this, and we’ll try win as well — that is in our DNA, having come from Barcelona. We have a competitive DNA from being there for so long.
Just as MLS has a lengthy history of attracting massive names at the tail end of their careers, it has a lengthy history of some of those players taking their foot off the gas. As long as Suarez is healthy, it seems impossible to imagine the famously competitive Uruguayan coasting his way to retirement. He lit the Brazilian top flight on fire last year and it feels almost realistic to imagine him doing the same to MLS — if he can stay on the field. Messi and the others showed similar fire last season, so there’s nothing to suggest any of them will ease up now.
Miami is set to embark on a preseason tour that will see them travel to El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan and elsewhere. They play seven games in under a month and travel tens of thousands of miles to do so. Is he prepared for that? Is he worried about the physical cost of that itinerary?
Suarez: I think a professional has to be ready for everything. In this case it’s just about preparing ourselves well, doing good work to get into rhythm. These preseason games let (Tata) see elements of our team, see new players that are arriving. We’re indebted to the club, too, and to the public, and we have to be ready for that. So in El Salvador, or Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, wherever we go we have to be professionals, get into game shape and keep improving ahead of February 21st, when we start the MLS regular season.
Miami is set to embark on a preseason tour unlike any other in recent memory for MLS. David Beckham’s LA Galaxy teams did something of the like but Miami’s schedule seems particularly insane, something more reminiscent of the New York Cosmos’ globe-trotting ways in the 1970s. But when the Cosmos were trotting Pele out across multiple continents, they played in a league whose season was five months long. Major League Soccer’s spans nearly twice that, and the offseason and preseason, about the only chance players have to recover, gets shorter every year.
Unquestionably, it would be unreasonable to expect Miami not to maximize their potential financial gain from signing Suarez, Messi and others of their ilk. The club — and fans — just have to hope they don’t stretch those players too thin.
How much did he talk to Busquets, Messi and Alba about everyday life in the U.S., and in Miami in particular?
Suarez: Obviously all of those players are different, they all have their own lives, their own family. But they spoke very highly of Miami, they’re all happy. It’s better for some of them than others, for Busi, for him it’s the first time he’s been abroad and that change can be a little difficult. But today he told me he’s doing great, his kids are doing great. Jordi too, after many years at Barcelona, this has been a big change for him. Three kids, it’s difficult. Leo obviously is a little more used to this and I’m probably more used to this sort of thing than any of them, with the changes I’ve made throughout my career. So I can probably give them more advice than they can give me in terms of what life is like abroad, about those difficulties.
While Messi, Busquets and Alba have all had relatively static resumes, Miami is the ninth stop on Suarez’ CV, which qualifies him as something of a journeyman. After starting his career in Uruguay, the 36-year-old spent stretches in the Netherlands, England and Spain before returning to Uruguay for a short spell and moving to Gremio, in Brazil. Getting homesick hardly seems like a risk here. Particularly in a city with as much to offer as Miami.
When did he first get it in his head to come to MLS?
Suarez: With (former Uruguay teammate and long-time Seattle Sounder) Nico (Lodeiro), I’ve always been in touch. I watched his games, we have a great relationship. Now we’ll be rivals in a “clasico,” which is really nice. I had that with Leo, when I was with Atletico Madrid and he was with Barcelona, a game between friends. I remember I talked to Nico about MLS maybe in 2019, 2020? I had an interest in coming here back then. But football had other plans for me. I got the opportunity at Atleti, I got the opportunity to go back to my home country, and then Brazil, opportunities that you don’t pass up. To be given this opportunity now is nice, though, and I’m ready to meet that challenge and to achieve big things.
Lodeiro is among the greatest playmaking midfielders MLS has ever seen and it’s long been reported that he and Suarez have discussed the possibility of Suarez coming stateside. Lodeiro had spent the entirety of his MLS career with the Seattle Sounders until this year, when he landed in Orlando. Miami vs. Orlando City is a new rivalry, yes, and maybe it doesn’t quite qualify as the “clasico” Suarez describes. But it should prove to be a compelling matchup this season.
Is he aware of the fact that it’s hot in Florida?
Suarez: Yeah, they told me. They told me that in June, July, it’s very hot, very humid. But I’m going here from Brazil. There are entire months there that are pretty complicated to deal with. We have to be ready for that, but at least I know what I’m getting into, and you have to prepare yourself well.
Breaking news: it’s hot in Florida. The well-kept secret is now out.
Is any part of this move related to the fact that the United States will play host to Copa America this summer? How strong are his national team ambitions?
Suarez: Obviously when you’re a player on a national team you always want to be included on that team. I’ve always said it. I had a chance, after the last World Cup, to step aside, but as the months went by in Brazil I felt good physically, I still felt I could help the national team in whatever role they chose for me. You always have to accept the role you’re given. Coming to the United States, knowing the Copa America is played here this year, that’s another plus, to acclimate myself here. I know it will be hot, and that’s good, it’s important.
And from there it’s just about my performance on the pitch. I’ve always said, and I said it the last time I was chosen to play on the national team in November. I was on the team for my performance, meritoriously. I’d had good games in a very competitive league in Brazil, and this will be the same — how am I physically, what is my level of play like? It’ll be the coaches decision, how I can contribute. But it will always be based on my performance on the pitch, not because of my name.
Suarez, capped 138 times, remains a staple player for Uruguay. Again, it feels like a safe-enough bet that he will do well in MLS. Yet players have sometimes suffered from MLS’ perception as second-rate and not as competitive as other global leagues. Suarez wouldn’t be the first international standout to watch his national team career disappear into the rear-view after coming to America, if it comes to that.
How many goals can he score in MLS?
Suarez: I’m a professional. I set my own goals, and I know what I can do, I know what I can support. I know the number of goals I want to score to help my team, I know the number of goals I want to score. But I don’t want to say what number that is. I’m not like Romario. Romario would (say) that he’d score 20, or 30 and then he’d score them. I like to keep them to myself and then see what happens.
If Suarez plays anywhere near the 53 matches he did for Gremio and if he finds quality service — which he seems likely to, with players like Alba and Messi feeding him the ball — let’s put the over/under at 15.
What’s a realistic goal for Miami? Casual observers seem to assume the club will win everything in sight — MLS Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, a CONCACAF Championship and Leagues Cup. Is that even remotely realistic?
Suarez: I think the best word that we have as players is “dream.” To dream big. Why not dream about winning all four titles? Obviously that will depend on us. We can talk all we want but we have to produce on the pitch, we have to sacrifice. Not just talk, but work. So the phrase I’d use again, is to “dream big.” Because why not?
A handful of MLS teams have done the “double,” wining MLS Cup and the Open Cup. Others have done a different version of that, adding the Supporters’ Shield — given to the team with the best regular-season record — and the league title, as well. Only Toronto FC has ever done any version of a “treble,” winning the Supporters’ Shield, MLS Cup and Canadian Championship in 2017.
Can Inter Miami become the first-ever MLS team to win four titles in a single season? Only time will tell, but that seems like a real, real longshot, or as Suarez chooses to put it, a “big dream.”
(Photo: Arturo Jimenez/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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