Back 'warrior' Suarez to be fit, but Reds' fans won't mind if he misses out (ESPN article)

by Dave Usher for ESPN

Of all the players who may have found themselves in danger of missing the World Cup due to injury, Luis Suarez would have been the last one many people would have expected. The Uruguayan has never missed a game for Liverpool due to injury -- it’s incredibly rare for him to even miss a training session -- and his only absences have been due to other, shall we say “indiscretions.”

So the news that he’d undergone knee surgery after suffering damage when Newcastle’s Paul Dummett clattered into him with four minutes remaining of Liverpool’s final game of the season was somewhat surprising. It turns out he is human after all.

It seems like there’s always an injury drama surrounding a big star in the build up to these major international tournaments. The only surprise this time is that it’s not an England player at the centre of it -- although interest in England will still be huge as Suarez is the Premier League’s newly crowned Footballer of the Year and, more significantly, his Uruguay side are due to face Roy Hodgson’s men in Sao Paolo on June 19.

Over the next few weeks, the Uruguayan public will no doubt be subjected to daily fitness updates on their national hero and by the time the World Cup eventually starts they’ll be experts on the inner and outer workings of a meniscus. [Just as the English are with the other dreaded ‘M’ word -- metatarsal -- following the sagas involving David Beckham and Wayne Rooney ahead of recent major international tournaments.]

Suarez says there’s nothing for the people of Uruguay to worry about and that he will make it to Brazil. You certainly wouldn’t bet against him; the man is a warrior and he’s been playing through pain his whole career. It takes a lot for Suarez to miss a game, he gets kicked more than anybody in the Premier League but he just grits his teeth and gets on with it. In his autobiography, Goodfella, Craig Bellamy wrote of his former Anfield teammate: “He took a hell of a lot of punishment, too. He would take his socks off after a game and his calves and his ankles would be black and blue from where he had been kicked.”

So England fans would be wise to not get their hopes up too much as it will be more surprising if Liverpool’s No. 7 isn’t leading the line when Uruguay’s World Cup campaign starts against Costa Rica in a few weeks.

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