Atletico Madrid’s hopes of coming back against Chelsea in the Champions League on Wednesday may depend on Luis Suarez’s return to the country, where he became one of the best players in the world. Atletico Trail 1-0 after Olivier Giroud’s bicycle kick lit up an uneven first game at Wanda Metropolitano last month and gave Chelsea a significant advantage in the second leg of this week. And if they are to reach the quarter-finals with the second quarter knocking at Liverpool last year, Atletico will need Suarez back at Stamford Bridge for the best.
Uruguayan’s form matches that of his team, with a mild drop in recent weeks that has become inevitable after such first half of the season.
Suarez scored 16 goals in his first 21 matches, while Atletico lost only one of their first 20 in the league when they held their first La Liga title since 2014.
Yet they have won only three of their final eight and Suarez has scored only twice in that time, even though those three goals have come against Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao.
“Natural born striker”
Certainly, there can be no room for complacency for Chelsea, who can only do so much damage to Suarez after their highly successful four seasons at Liverpool, when they scored 82 goals in 133 matches.
“He’s a natural-born striker,” Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel said ahead of the first leg. “They have a certain mindset that only strikers have. This mentality is their willpower, intensity and anger to try and score and is never satisfied. What a mentality, what a player is.”
Tuchel is a fan who tried to sign the 34-year-old to Paris Saint-Germain when it became clear that he was out of Barcelona last summer.
“There was a possibility,” Tuchel said. “We heard rumors that he was about to leave Barcelona and who might not be interested in signing one of the best strikers in history and currently world football?
“We tried our luck. We didn’t make it, he chose to stay in Spain with Atletico and he proves his quality again.”
Suarez also has a history with Chelsea, following one of his three cutting events while playing for Liverpool in 2013, with Branislav Ivanovic at the time suffering.
But without fans in the stadium and with a fresh crop of players, Chelsea will be focused solely on being a threat to Suarez’s own goal, while the striker is away from home waiting for his six-year Champions League goal Will hope to eliminate.
“For all competitions, not just the Champions League, their presence gives us experience and leadership,” Atletico coach Diego Simeone said last month.
“He brings a lot of confidence to our team and a lot of stress to our opponents because history shows that this is a player who has a gift around the goal.”
Suarez’s 18 goals in 29 matches this season mean that his switch from Barcelona to Atletico last summer has already been won but will now be a disappointment if the season is not over with the trophy.
Despite his dip, Atlético are four points ahead of Barça in La Liga and it could be that a defeat to Chelsea could help their La Liga ambitions, while the Catalans were knocked out of the Champions League last week by Paris Saint-Germain It was done.
Promoted
Suarez will not trust. “My path has always been to stay competitive, always want to prove myself,” he said earlier this month.
“To come on a team like Atletico that hasn’t won a title in a long time, to be able to win something is definitely a wish I have.”
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