It’s terrible, isn’t it? Disgusting, I heard one man say. And this is the second time Suarez has done it. Bit a man, I mean. When Chiellini showed his arm to the referee, they say the man nearly got sick. Never saw the like. Chiellini of course had to be rushed straight to hospital, where they say he’s in intensive care, it’s touch and go, that’s how serious it…What? He’s not in hospital? In that case he must have a doctor in daily attendance wherever he’s staying. I mean a flesh wound like that, straight through to the bone, you’d have to change the dressing a couple of times a day, and have his blood pressure monitored, his…He’s not at home? He’s not getting the wound treated? My God. That’s criminal neglect. He’s bound to have lost a lot of blood – you don’t have the likes of Suarez chomping clean through to the bone without…It wasn’t through to the bone? Really? But I saw a headline in the Daily Telegraph today, or was it the Daily Mail – “The end of the world”. They’re saying Suarez will simply have to receive a life-time ban. I mean, where do you draw the line?
Nicolas de Jong – what’s he got to do with it? You say a few years ago he launched a kung fu kick on Xabi Alonso – launched his foot into Alonso’s chest with no hope of the player avoiding the lunge? Mmm. Not very nice that. I imagine he’s received a life-ti – No, he can’t have. Because I saw him playing in one of the World Cup matches the other day. Odd. Maybe it was another de Jong. Still, a kick in the chest – at least it’s not biting, is it?
Roy Keane? What are you talking about Roy Keane for? We’re talking here about Suarez and Chiellini. You say you want to talk about Roy Keane and Alf-Inge Haaland. Oh OK, if you must. You’re talking about 2001 – a bit long to hold a grudge, that, if you ask me. But you say Keane deliberately launched what was described at the time as a “horror tackle”, that as good as ended the Norwegian player’s football career. Mmmm. And that as he did it, he shouted “Take that, you cunt!”, because apparently he and Roy had a previous history. Probably exaggerated – I mean seriously. Roy’s a nice man. So neat and witty when he’s doing the half-time pundit thing. Anyway, whatever, he did to this Haaland guy, it might have ended his career but at least he didn’t bite him. Chiellini could have that scar on his arm for …A week, you say? Maybe even ten days?
It doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing. Don’t care if he is a great footballer. Don’t care if he was voted Player of the Season. Don’t care if he did spearhead Liverpool’s revival. And I especially don’t care if he scored those two wonder goals against Engalnd. Ban him for life. Now. That’s what I say. It’s just. Not. Cricket.
I suppose biting, like spitting, is just not on. I wouldn`t like to be bitten by anyone, least of all Suarez, fantastic player though he is he does possess a great set of fangs. I just don`t understand why someone would bite an opponent, especially a big centre back. Fact is Uruguay did score the goal after the incident so maybe he did it to disconcert the Italian defence? Football is all about small details as the great Cruyff once said. Poor Chiellini took one for the team but unfortunately it wasn`t the Azzurri.
A studs up tackle by Nigel – not Nicholas – de Jong cannot be compared to Suarez biting an opponent for the third time – not second as stated. Dirty tackles will always be part of the game, as they will in all contact sports, as they are a more aggressive version of a tackle. Sinking your teeth into a part of an opponent’s body is beyon the pale. I think there was a bit of a row in one of the games of your beloved GAA a few weeks ago and many bloggers played it down, what would they think if one of the players, in the middle of the row, sunk his teeth into an opponent? I’m sorry, but this guy deserves a lengthy ban, even some of my Liverpool supporting friends want rid of him.
Thank you for the corrections, William – you are, as so often, right. Or half-right. Stating that biting is ‘beyond the pale’ but dirty tackles (career-threatening tackles?) are not – is that your position. OK – here’s one, Your son is playing football. Would you rather he got a nip (and that’s all it was) with someone’s teeth, or have his leg broken in several different places – as had Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo de Silva, both of Arsenal? I don’t think you need to scratch your head too long with that one, William. I’m not for a moment saying biting an opponent is OK – it’s kind of disgusting indeed. Like picking your nose in public. Or reverting to being an aggressive infant. But it’s still muuuuuch less offensive than those tackles I’ve mentioned. Never hear talk of suspending them for life. Btw, where you get ‘your beloved GAA’ I don’t know. I really like good GAA games, I really like good soccer games, as I really like good tennis matches – the list goes on. No need to be gratuitously offensive.
No offence intended Jude, sorry if it seemed that way
I probably sounded more pompous in that last sentence than I intended. No offence taken and thank you for your gentlemanly response.
The reaction to this is hilarious. I would rather get a bite than a leg breaking tackle or indeed a kick in the head(see Alan shearer on Neil Lennon). I even found the sight of Suarez holding his gnashers after the incident even funnier, in a futile attempt at suggesting he hurt his pearly whites.
The attitude of the English driven media would suggest a bit of revenge on their behalf perhaps, due to the bigger crime Suarez did ie biting the hand that has fed him this past while?
I think you’ve nailed it, WT…
Sorry wolfe but you seem to have joined the bandwagon of those blaming the British media. Perhaps chiellini did shove his shoulder into suarez’s mouth, is this the same media that voted him their footballer of the year this season past?
Tacking is part of the game, as it is in GAA, biting is not.
For once I agree with William here. There was a bite. Nothing to do with anybody but Suarez. He may have been hurt beforehand but that is not justification.
I detested this man since the last World Cup – poor Ghana. And will admit to cheering him and forgiving him when he scored against England ( Jude has a good post on that one)!
It was almost as if he redeemed himself – just almost. And then this – watched it live, saw it happening and felt my heart sink.
As a staunch Irish Republican I would rather have seen England go through (did I write that??) than watch this cheating Uruguayan team prosper. They have form on this type of behaviour. So does Suarez.
I echo your comment re Ghana in the 2010 World Cup – Suarez effectively robbed them of a place in the Semi-final.
I still would rather someone bite me than break my leg on the field. In fact I would even tolerate a bite than someone spit at me and the gallant John terry was good at that. Funnily enough that was at another South American rogue Carlos tevez.
People might remember that in modern football blood injuries have, since hiv, been subject to players leaving the field and having a complete change of any clothing that was blood stained.
In this case Suarez teeth broke the skin of Ciellini; now hopefully neither player has hiv but at the very least Chiellini will require anti-tetanus and probably antibiotics.
As it is his 3rd offence, perhaps he should only be allowed to play again if he wears a muzzle.
What’s all this chat about, anyway?
. A little light cannibalism on the field will hardly do a bit of harm. It’s almost expected anyway. An anti -rabies shot and Bob”s yer uncle…all’s well again. I suppose they could try a muzzle . It works fine for excitable greyhounds; or they might de-fang the players.
What the hell do they need teeth for anyway .These overpaid Big Jessies can afford a harem of nubile honeys to spoonfeed them mushy pablum for the rest of their lives. On their wages!!! Special spoonfeeding WAGs
. A visit to the dentist before they’re hired would do the trick . The ref could collect all the dentures in a bucket at the start of the game and then they could sort them out at the end or swap them like jerseys with their opponents.
It’s along way since Vinnie Jones grabbed Gazza by the cojones….Now that was something to make the eyes water !!!
I am amazed at everyone for downplaying this so much. There is a huge danger of infection being transferred through biting. Hep A, B, or C is pretty common these days, not to mention other transmittable diseases like aids.
Sadly, it’s not at all difficult to imagine something worse than L. Suarez doing his Hannibal L. thingy. Off the top of one’s head, two things immediately spring to what one is still pleased to call one’s mind.
First up, for those of us sporting purists, for whom Le Snobisme is the driving force, the really poignant thing about yesterday’s game was the sight of the peerless Pirlo bidding farewell to the World Stage. In an era where percussion is the sine qua non of soccer this Donizetti of midfielders has always insisted on not only carrying a tune but more often than not the rest of his mediocre Azzurri team-mates as well.
Alas, in a team of extremes ranging from Buffon to the buffoon known as Balotelli, even this midfield maestro was unable to conjure up survival.
Pirlo was to soccer what Supermac, aka Ciaran Mac Donald was to Gaelic Football. Si, signor, he was that good.
Arrividerci, Andrea. It is difficult indeed not to suppress ‘una furtiva lagrima’.
Second up, despite the vast acreage of coverage which the Southern Media has been lavishing on Brasil 2014 they have consistently ignored – at least up to this – THE most treasured of all the trophies on offer in the Amazonian basin: it is of course that of….The Very Best Fans in the Whole Wide World.
Can it be because WE are the current holders of that priceless bauble and are not there to defend it, the ROI of Roy and the Wee MO’N being currently pegged at a rather disconcerting rung number 70 in the global rankings? Surely not. The Free Southern State has been accused of many things, but Small Mindedness? Never. It embraces an all-inclusive concept of what constitutes Irishness, or it is nothing.
But, of course, all is not lost yet. We do have after all two of THE greatest Irishmen of ALL time still doing the biz for us a full twenty five years after they woke up one fine morning to find (with apologies to Lord Byron) that they were ……Irishmen.
Today they have swopped their ganseys and boots for the roving microphone and the earplugs. And in the sweltering jungles of a strange and foreign land too, far from the land of their, erm, births.. Such devotion to the cause, such self sacrifice, far, far beyond all the calls of normal duty, can only make one scratch one’s head in wonder and gawk in awe. Perhaps it is this very devotion of our players/ex-players which in the past has brought out the best in us Irish as….fans, qua fans?
I refer of course to Hootsmon Houghten and Fony Cascarino. The latter is in the fick of fings for us despite knowing better than most, perhaps, that this national identity fingy is a lottery, innit? All depends upon where the chips fall, mate, don’it?
One sincerely hopes that it is part of their patriotic brief to keep an eye out for the new holders of that dear little shamrock-shaped trophy which we Irish have so reluctantly relinquished.
The new Very Best Fans in the Whole Wide World will be easy to spot: they will be the sodden bozos, drenched to the bone after a downpour of monsoon proportions, and a full THREE hours after their team has just been hockeyed 6-0,, still standing on the waterlogged terraces, with a smile of their faces and a song in their hearts, waving their soggy flags (fill in as appropriate, but not alas, the Green White and ….Yellow) and cheerfully chanting their lovable and their listen-to-us-and love-us anthem: ‘Low lie the Rainforests in the fields of Athen…..Rio’.
Yep ; mrkeetz you might be right at that .Old hep is no picnic …been there…done that.. survived with the tee shirt….but they’ve great drugs these days to keep us all going and then there’s the liver transplants . Never had any of that back in my day …old Christiaan Barnard had just figured out heart transplants a few lean years before , so it wasn’t for everyone….. .Still, I reckon , defanging footballers from now on is the way to go ….just to be on the safe side ….as it were….You can’t be too careful …..
Biting, spitting and kicking a ball around, this what little boys do, no change there then!!
Most footballers are an overpaid bunch of pompous pricks, totally up their own backside. Unfortunately their are also role models to a lot of young men, who tend to ape what they do.
I see the victim in this comical biting saga has said that the punishment meted out to Suarez is too much. El Diego has also condemned the punishment, and that’s good enough for me; )