The private plane, registration LVIRQ, coming from Barcelona and owned by Lionel Messi, arrived at Carrasco Airport in Uruguay at 10:55 am on the last day of July. On board the Celeste all-time top scorer, Luis Suárez, and his family.
Thousands of Nacional fans awaited him on the spot, the club where he appeared and for which the gunman returns to play 17 years later after a long career that has taken him to Holland, England and Spain and after an extensive network of the negotiations that began when Suárez turned down the offer from Argentine club River Plate.
Suárez returns to Uruguay for love. That of his compatriots – Nacional fans or not – and what ties him to his family, as he confessed in his first statements on the mainland, in which he revealed that it was Delfina and Benjamin who expressed their desire to live in their country, near his cousins and his uncles.
“The luck they have has no name,” concluded the striker. “Lautaro is very small, but he has already arrived here and asked for the Nacional shirt. Delfina and Benjamín restrained the desire to cry with emotion when they found out that we are coming to Uruguay and they left to tell their friends,” he added. And he dealt with the legacy: “I want that my son will play on the clay courts that I have played on.”
He has also done his part to solve a serious problem in Uruguayan football that completely distances these types of transfers. “Now that we are an example and many people will see Uruguayan football, we should try to eliminate this violence and insults,” he said.
In addition to River, Luis Suárez received offers from all over the world, some of which were very juicy, such as Toluca from Mexico, for almost six million euros a year. However, like three other players in the squad, he will play for around €30,000 a month.
The forward’s joy, born in Salto on Argentina’s coast bordering Argentina, was reflected on his face as he craned his neck like a child out the window of the van leading a huge caravan of fans who cried, applauded and saluted and they waved flags from sidewalks, rooftops, balconies, buses, sailboats and even a small plane to their idol, the one who scored two goals against England in Brazil 2014, the one who made his debut and returned to Great Central Park.
The first trigger for Suárez to return to Nacional is the climate in Qatar and the atypical date on which the World Cup will be played. Then his family and friends, his colleagues and the tricolor’s fans and leaders were key.
“Some time ago, when we were in the national team, we always talked about the possibility of a return, it was about the right timing, not the desire. In theory, it wasn’t the right moment, but because of the great mobilization and management that the President did and everything that the fan generated, he finally mobilized it,” former player and current coach Sebastián Abreu told EL PAÍS.
When Suárez River said no, he also admitted, “I’m surprised because the Nacional leaders didn’t even call me to find out my situation.” The reaction of Nacional fans was immediate. The hashtag #SuárezANacional was a global trend thanks to the fact that a large part of the country joined a call that included athletes in general, politicians, scientists, cultural figures and even Lucho’s own speakers such as Álvaro Recoba, Diego Forlán and Lionel Messi , who spoke publicly or privately. “He wished me well, he told me he would be in the country and with family,” Suarez said of Leo.
presidential job
However, the first to believe was the President of Nacional, José Fuentes, who traveled to Spain and served as a bridge between this affection and the player. It was he who received the call from Suárez three minutes before he posted the video on Twitter confirming his “inevitable return”.
Then the fans did their thing. In one week, the club added 2,000 new members and another 4,000 are waiting on the waiting list. In addition, another 5,000 have already reserved their jersey as a result of a new deal with Umbro, the company that clothes Nacional, after the 1,500 sold around the stadium sold out.
Punctually at 2:00 p.m., Suárez signed the contract after presenting himself with his teammates and jumping onto the field to greet the crowd that, like every Sunday, dressed Central Park. “I’m here for you because I want to be here and because I want to win,” he told them, and what seemed impossible became a reality. Without luxury or millionaire contracts. only for glory
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