Suarez: New hero at Nou Camp

For the second time in his career, Luis Suarez won the European Golden Shoe. But this time the joy was more complete as he lifted the La Liga championship.

In the summer of 2004, a young foreign couple stood hesitantly in front of the Nou Camp stadium. They wanted to go in, but had no money to buy tickets. Seeing a half-closed gate, perhaps someone had gone out and forgotten to lock it, the young man said to the girl: "Let's just go in."

The girl hesitated, but the boy held her hand and pulled her in. Just a few minutes later, they were in the Nou Camp stadium without encountering any security. The boy told his girlfriend: "I dream of playing in this stadium one day, and you will sit in the stands."

The boy was Luis Suarez, then 17 years old and an unknown player for the youth team of Nacional (Uruguay). The girl was Sofia, the girlfriend he had met two years earlier in Montevideo. They fell in love at first sight. But just a year later, Sofi had to leave to follow her family to Barcelona because of her father's job. Suarez promised to visit, and did everything he could to be near his lover. And the "secret" visit to the Nou Camp was the first time in Suarez's life that he had taken a plane across the Atlantic.

Suarez and Sofia have had a beautiful love story.

In 2006, Suarez agreed to move to Groningen in the Netherlands to play, just because it was closer to Barcelona. And every time he visited Sofia, he and she went to the Nou Camp to watch a match (of course, he paid for the tickets later).

Suarez was there, watching Gerard Pique raise all five fingers to taunt Real Madrid fans in Jose Mourinho's first Clasico win 5-0. He was there when Andres Iniesta scored the only goal against Espanyol in a Catalan derby. In another Clasico, this time before Mourinho arrived, Suarez watched Fabio Cannavaro sprint back to try and block a chip from Lionel Messi, only to run into the post. In another game, this time in the Champions League, Suarez turned to Sofia and said: "He's a hundred times better than you" after watching Messi complete a poker against Arsenal in a match Barca won 4-1.

Barcelona was initially just the city of his lover for Suarez. He went there just to visit Sofi. But over time, he and that place had a strange bond. Even after the scandal of biting Giorgio Chiellini's shoulder at the 2014 World Cup, Suarez seemed to be depressed. He cried so much that Sofia, now his wife, had to take him to see a psychologist. Suarez cried because he was afraid that his dream of playing for Barcelona would be shattered.

The 2013-2014 season had just ended, he won the "European Golden Boot", but Liverpool missed out on the Premier League title due to Steven Gerrard's disastrous slip. All summer, before the 2014 World Cup started, he had been anxiously waiting for the transfer to Barca to be completed. But the four-month ban from football activities because of the infamous "dog-biting" incident put everything on the brink. It was only after Barca agreed to finalize all the terms that Suarez finally breathed a sigh of relief. It was also rumored that the Spanish team had included a "no-bite" clause in the contract before agreeing to recruit the Uruguayan striker. Suarez later said: "If there really was such a clause, I would still sign it." That is one aspect that shows how much he loves the city and this club.

Suarez is making history with Barca. Photo: AP.

And yesterday, that love continued to bear fruit. He closed out this season's La Liga campaign by scoring all three goals in a 3-0 win over Granada. With that hat-trick, Suarez ended the season with 40 goals, winning both the Pichichi and the European Golden Shoe, breaking the Cristiano Ronaldo - Lionel Messi dominance that lasted more than half a decade.

Pique said, "It feels like we should win La Liga twice this season." If so, Suarez is the man who single-handedly brought Barca to the championship for the second time. That's because after Atletico Madrid leveled the score and Real Madrid narrowed the gap to one point a month ago, Suarez single-handedly dragged Barca's dismal team to the finish line.

In the last five rounds, Suarez scored... 14 goals and had four assists. Ronaldo was proudly leading the scoring list, and when he turned around, Suarez was seen rising as if he had a rocket attached to his back. From the bottom of a crisis of confidence after being eliminated from the Champions League and losing a ten-point advantage in La Liga, Suarez dispelled the clouds with one of the most convincing performances in La Liga history. He scored a poker and a hat-trick of assists to help Barca crush Deportivo La Coruna 8-0, then scored another poker in the next match against Sporting Gijon. From then on, opponents knew it would be difficult for them to overthrow Barca.

Suarez, from the ticketless boy who entered the Nou Camp that year, is now the hero of that stadium. He once only dared to dream of Sofia watching him play, now he has more than that. In the Catalan derby with Espanyol in the penultimate round last week, his wife and two children were in the stands to witness Suarez score a double and assist a goal. And this summer, Suarez will officially return to play for Uruguay in a major tournament, the Copa America, after two years on the sidelines due to suspension. The sadness of two years ago passed in the blink of an eye. He won the treble in his first season, successfully defended the La Liga championship and won the Golden Boot in his second season.

Suarez single-handedly revived Barca during the most difficult period of this season. Photo: Reuters.

As one of the most controversial players in history, Suarez certainly has many aspects to admire, such as the way he gets up after falling and his loyal love for his muse Sofia.

According to VNE