Suárez doesn't care about criticism
The past month has been an eventful one for Luis Suárez. Accused of being racist by Patrice Evra; accused of diving by Sir Alex Ferguson (among many others) and
accused of being a bit wasteful by this blog. Not that he appears to give a toss. Unlike Cristiano Ronaldo, who was often on the end of xenophobic taunts similar to
those the Uruguayan is now having to endure in England, Suárez appears to have thicker skin. But he does have similarly turbo-charged boots.
He has just won his third player-of-the-month award in a row at Liverpool and scored four goals for Uruguay in an individual performance of breathtaking quality in Friday's World Cup qualifier against Chile. A combination of left foot, left shoulder, header, right foot makes it a perfect hat-trick plus one. His first and last goals, struck with power and unerring accuracy from outside the box,
were reminiscent of the instinctive low strikes that earned Robbie Fowler deification among Liverpool fans. Suárez still has some way to go to reach similar status at Anfield but he could hasten his ascension if he brings the boots he wore in Montevideo back to Merseyside with him.
Suárez may be more divisive than an argumentative mathematician but he is entertaining and his detractors will probably get bored with slagging him off before they get bored with watching him.
GR
Euro 2016 beckons for Wales
For the first time since 2008 Wales have won three games in a row. Finding form when there are no competitive matches to be played is not particularly helpful but,
in their 4-1 friendly victory over a Norway side ranked 21 places above them in Fifa's rankings, Gary Speed's side looked pacey, inventive and capable of growing into a real force.
The most pleasing aspect for Wales fans is that the average age of the team was under 24. Gareth Bale, who scored and created a goal in the match, is now replicating his Spurs form for the national team. Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey, at only 20, is already a commanding presence as captain and will only get better. Add to these two stellar youngsters the growing presence of a crop of players in their early 20s, including the Swansea midfielder Joe Allen and the Wolves striker Sam Vokes, and the future looks extraordinarily bright for Wales.
They may shine in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers but, in a group containing Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Scotland and Macedonia, shining may not be enough. A more realistic aim would be Euro 2016 in France. If Wales can keep the current group of players fit and their young manager in situ, a team reaching their peak could take the nation to their first major finals since 1976.
GR
It's never too late …
Dean Ashton finally did it in June 2008, even Kevin Davies did it in October 2010 but it looked as if Carl Cort was never going to escape the curse of the quiz question. Cort, now 34 and without a club since leaving Brentford in January, looked destined to be remembered as a footballing footnote – one of those three (or was it four?) English players to have cost £7m and never played international football.
Nigel Reo-Coker and the late Dean Richards have now been left on their own, with Jermaine Pennant tagging along, asterisk in tow. Eleven years after making his expensive (in more ways than one) move from Wimbledon to Newcastle, Cort, alongside his brother Leon, has been persuaded to turn out for Guyana and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the former England Under-21 striker could end his career with a trip to the World Cup finals in 2014. Victory against Trinidad and Tobago at the weekend – their first win against T&T in more than 60 years – has taken the team currently ranked 97th in the world by Fifa into the final stage of Concacaf qualifying for the first time.
"This is the biggest thing to ever happen to Guyana football," said the team manager, Mark Xavier, for whom Cort was winning a second cap. "I might wake up in the morning and not believe that this has happened."
To reach Brazil the Golden Jaguars will have to either top their group – containing Mexico, Costa Rica (62 in the world) and El Salvador (No82) – or finish as the best runner-up and beat Oceania's best side (let's, for arguments sake, say it happens to be New Zealand) in a play-off – a tall order but certainly not out of reach. And success for the side would be a major boost to the region's coaches, often overlooked in favour of the Bora Milutinovics and Leo Beenhakkers of the football world.
"I've done a hundred Fifa courses and the things I've learned have filled me with the belief that a Caribbean coach can take a team from the region all the way to a major competition," said the Trinidadian-born Guyana head coach, Jamaal Shabaaz. "Before, the idea was always to get someone in from Europe or South America but this is my chance now to change all that and open the way for my colleagues."
JA
Hiddink heading for international wilderness … or England
For most of his managerial career Guus Hiddink has played the role of freelance fixer to perfection. In 1998 he united a Dutch team that had been beset with internal disputes and led them to the semi-finals of the World Cup in France. He took a South Korea team that had never won a World Cup match to the last four of the tournament they co-hosted in 2002, with eye-popping wins against Italy and Spain on the way. He won three Eredivisie titles with PSV and simultaneously took Australia to their first World Cup finals in 32 years in Germany, where it took the eventual champions, Italy, to knock them out. He brought out the best in Russia's talented squad and guided them to the semi-finals of Euro 2008, playing the most attractive football of any team at the tournament apart from Spain, the eventual winners. In a six-month spell at Chelsea he lost only one match and guided a disjointed group, who had never taken to Luiz Felipe Scolari after José Mourinho's departure, to the FA Cup and third place in the league.
Here was a man who could win multiple series of Scrapheap Challenge if football was its theme. Which is why it is sad that, after failing to take Russia to the World Cup in 2010,
Turkey's 3-0 home defeat by Croatia in the first leg of their Euro 2012 play-off looks likely to land Hiddink on the managerial scrapheap himself, at least until Paris Saint-German and their billions come calling, if rumours are to be believed. Australia fans used to sing "Guus your daddy?" in praise of the genial 65-year-old Dutchman. But Turkey fans' venomous chants for him to be sacked in Istanbul mean this footballing father figure may have run his last on the international stage. Unless England come calling next summer, that is …
GR
Bilic is back on the rise
There was a time when Slaven Bilic was managerial property so hot that steam could be seen rising from the Croatia manager's dug-out. He had steered the Croats to Euro 2008 at England's expense, he had made an appearance on Match of the Day 2 that highlighted just how stale the regular pundits had become, he played guitar. Between 2007 and 2010 in these very pages the Croatia manager was linked with Fulham, West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Liverpool, West Ham (again), Sunderland (again) and Celtic.
But his star has faded since the hammerings his side took from Fabio Capello's team in World Cup qualifying. This year the only mention of Bilic's name in connection with a job in British football was with West Ham in the summer, and that was most likely through force of habit. His side were top seeds in Group F but, thanks to defeats in Tbilisi and Athens, were bumped into the play-offs by serial qualifiers Greece. Victory in Istanbul, then, was arguably as crucial for Bilic's future
as defeat was for Hiddink.
"If I have to single out a particular department, then it's the running of our forwards because the kind of pressure on the ball they demonstrated is the key to success in modern football," Bilic said. "The whole team was magnificent as everything fell into place for us but we mustn't let complacency creep in because the job isn't done yet."
If disasters can be avoided in the second leg, a solid tournament next summer will ensure his name creeps back up on those managerial shortlists.
JA
This article has been amended since first publication
