‘Suarez was treated like a dog’

Uruguay defender Diego Godin believes that star striker Luis Suarez was treated unfairly following his tussle with Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Suarez bit Chiellini in the heat of battle in what was one of the most shocking incidents that the World Cup has seen in its recent history. Following the incident, FIFA banned Suarez from nine international matches and also from all kinds of football activity for four months. With Suarez out of the picture, Uruguay then lost to South American rivals Colombia in the last 16.

While talking to The Guardian, Godin admitted that Suarez had made a mistake but also reiterated how the incident and the punishment had dashed the country’s World Cup hopes.

"I’m convinced that if what happened against Italy hadn’t happened it would have been a different story.

"First, we lost our best player. Second, everything that happened affected us: it affected Luis and the rest of us. It was very hard to live through that, to see him dead, crying, fallen, kicked out of the World Cup.

"The whole country was sunk, indignant – and that was all we talked about until the Colombia game."

"I’m not going to say he didn’t make a mistake – he’s admitted that himself – but I still feel the same as most Uruguayans, most people in football who look at it objectively. It was very, very, very unjust.

Suarez has an unfortunate history of physically assaulting opponents but Godin believes that his fighting nature is what made the Uruguayan so formidable.

“Luis has got where he is because of the way he is: you see he gets angry, wound up, he fights, protests, competes.

“If he wasn’t like that, he wouldn’t be the player he is,” Godin remarked.