The careers of Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani aren’t just similar, they seem to run on parallel lines, appropriately enough given the duo have scored a collective 109 International goal in 229 appearances between them for their native Uruguay.
With both men on the move during the recent transfer window, we thought we’d take a look at their careers so far as the pair of 33-year-olds look to make one last major impression on the sport of football they’ve given so much to.
- The Early Years (2001-2006)
“There was only one player I looked up to, and that was Batistuta, the Argentina No. 9.”
The words of Luis Suarez, but they could easily have been attributed to Edinson Cavani as both men idolized the Argentinian striker. As a young boy, Suarez was one of seven brothers, brought up in the Cerro part of Salto in North West Uruguay, and it toughened him up considerably. Having hit foot run over by a car when he was young, Suarez would grow up stronger than ever, though with a hot-headed streak that would be a sign of things to come.
Send off for headbutting aged 16, he was nevertheless part of the Nacional youth set-up by then, and would come of age when 18 years old, scoring his first goal in the senior team and helping the side to the Uruguayan title. Five years after he joined Nacional, he left for Dutch club Groningen who spotted him while on a scouting trip to monitor a different player and coughed up €800,000 for his services. With a young wife missing him in Barcelona where she worked, Luis Suarez was on a plane to Holland aged just 19 to be that little bit closer.
Edinson Cavani was also one of several football-playing brothers, with two elder brother Walter and Christian who also went pro. Cavani’s Uruguayan football team were Danubio (named after the Blue Danube), who also brought players such as Álvaro Recoba and Diego Forlán through their ranks.
Cavani was quick, strong and deadly in the box, coming through the youth team to make his first appearance for the seniors aged 18, a year after Danubio had beaten Nacional to the title with the last kick of the final game, a backheel by Diego Perrone. Cavani flourished despite the pressure and less than two years later, would also be Europe-bound as he was signed for Palermo on the back of a spectacular South American Championship for a whopping fee of €4.475 million.
- European Success (2007-2011)
Arriving in Holland, Suarez was soon amongst the goals, eventually scoring 10 in 29 for Groningen during his sole season at the club. The reason Suarez wasn’t there long was that Ajax were interested, and despite a relatively low bid of €3.5 million, a trip to court eventually forced through the move and Suarez headed to Amsterdam on the back of Ajax paying an improved price of €7.5 million for his services.
During his time at Ajax, Holland’s most successful club, Suarez played 110 games across four seasons, scoring 81 times in an extremely prolific period. He was dogged by several disciplinary problems, however and head coach Marco van Basten wasn’t happy with the number of yellow cards he was receiving. That was never to improve, only getting worse as in the 2010/11 season, when Suarez bit opponent Otman Bakkal of PSV Eindhoven and was suspended for seven games, with Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf branding Suarez ‘The Cannibal of Ajax’.
At this point, Liverpool swooped and paying £22.8 million, securing the services of the mercurial Uruguayan to the club for five seasons. Once again, they would find out that with his supreme talent came a knack for putting in challenges with too much bite.
Cavani had, of course, been in Italy during this period. A star for Palermo, Cavani modelled himself on Gabriel Batistuta, stating: “Batistuta wasn’t a typical striker. [He was] a powerful footballer who was incredibly effective in front of goal. I always tried to copy him.”
Cavani’s record for Palermo is impressive – 34 goals in 109 games, a return of just under one in three. Nicknamed ‘El Matador’ during his time playing for I Rosanero, Cavani was famed for his composure in front of goal and was instrumental under Walter Zenga, helping Palermo to the brink of Champions League football with two games to spare.
Despite signing a contract in April 2010 that provisionally saw Cavani commit his future to Palermo until 2014 in principal, he would stay just three months more, snapped up by fellow Serie A side Napoli for a total of €17 million. He became an instant hit, scoring 25 goals in his first season for the club, a record for a league goalscorer in Napoli’s history which includes seven seasons of Maradona leading them to untold glory between 1984 and 1991.
Cavani, however, was sent off in a defeat at Lecce, leading to a two-game suspension that saw him overtaken as the Serie A top scorer of that season, and relegating Napoli to 3rd place, ultimately falling short of glory, but qualifying them directly for the Champions League.
- Making Their Names (2011-2014)
Cavani would overcome the disappointment of the end of his debut season, becoming a superstar at Napoli, helping them to the Italian Cup and pushing their worldwide profile with a series of outstanding performances in the Champions League, including against Manchester City.
Across the initial season-long loan period and subsequent two seasons, Cavani’s goalscoring record at Napoli was easily the best of his career, with 104 games in the light blue yielding an incredible 78 goals, better than three in every four games.
This form attracted attention from all over the world, and while for some time it looked like the Uruguayan would join either Chelsea or Manchester City, it was eventually Paris St. Germain who broke the bank – and the Ligue 1 transfer record at the time – by getting the signature of the former Danubio striker. To do so, they paid an incredible €64 million, the buyout clause which had just one month until its expiry.
In Paris, Cavani linked up with his former Napoli teammate in Ezequiel Lavezzi and fitted in from the start in the French capital, scoring four in five group games in the Champions League to help PSG make the knockouts with a 100% record, a rarity in the UCL.
At the same time that Cavani was becoming a star in Serie A, Luis Suarez was a smash hit in the Premier League. Signing for Liverpool in the summer of 2011, Suarez’s skill, strength and power in tight situations were perfect for the combative and famously physical division.
At times, Suarez courted controversy during his three years on Merseyside, specifically when he was accused of racially abusing Patrice Evra and when he chomped on the arm of Branislav Ivanovic:
Overall, however, at Liverpool, Suarez was a revelation. Steven Gerrard had an almost telepathic connection with Fernando Torres when he was at Anfield before Suarez, but Liverpool’s talismanic captain has always maintained that Suarez was the better player.
Fierce in the tackle, deadly when running at defences, the Uruguayan hitman scored some unbelievable goals for the club before being sold to Barcelona after biting Chiellini in the 2014 World Cup for just under £65 million, having become the only non-European player to win the PFA Player of the Year in his final season, and scoring 69 goals in 110 games. Here are 10 of the best:
- Dominating the Division
After arriving in 2013, Edinson Cavani won the Ligue 1 title in six of the seven years he was at the Parc Des Princes, scoring 200 times for the legendary French side and carving his name in history as their top goalscorer in history, ahead of luminaries such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic (156) and Pauleta (109).
He also left Paris having scored four goals in a game – tied for the most in all-time for the French champions and pulled them from having won three titles to nine, just one behind St. Etienne and Marseille with 10 titles. Cavani has also scored 15 goals in the French League Cup, a record, as well as 30 in European competition, also the top total in the club’s history.
Leaving in March of 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, Cavani would wait until the final day of the transfer window to sign for Manchester United on a reported £200,000 per week.
Could the Uruguayan be a hit at Old Trafford?
Luis Suarez would become Barcelona’s third-highest goalscorer in history during his time in Catalonia, by far the most successful period in his career. With 147 goals in 191 games, Suarez also won the Champions League in 2015, scoring the crucial goal to make it 2-1 against Juventus at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany before an injury-time third from Neymar added the gloss. Suarez was perennially a clutch player for Barcelona.
Forming part of the iconic ‘MSN’ trio of Messi, Suarez and Neymar, the Uruguayan might feel hard done to that only one European Cup would come his way during six years of playing alongside Lionel Messi. He did, however, win the La Liga title four times in his six seasons, and was a core component of every successful assault on the trophy, helping his team to dominate Real Madrid during the period with his unique brand of firepower.
In the summer of 2020, a new wind blew through Camp Nou after their spectacular 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich saw Suarez deemed surplus to requirements by Ronald Koeman. Having initially looked like he might join his former foe Ronaldo in Turin, Suarez failed to join Juventus after accusations surfaced about him cheating on his Italian citizenship test. Suarez instead signed a two-year contract with Atlético Madrid, Barce’s rivals in La Liga and scored two in his first appearance, a 20-minute cameo off the bench.
- Pastures New
With both Suarez and Cavani embracing the new challenges they face in La Liga and the English Premier League respectively, it is perhaps Suarez who has the best chance of success purely because he knows the league he’ll be playing in so well.
Even Barcelona, while stating that he was no longer needed, also admitted that they would miss him in an emotional tribute to one of their greatest ever goalscorers:
Edinson Cavani will need to step up in the Premier League to succeed at Manchester United where the pressure is red hot.
Just like with others before him, however, such as a young Cristiano Ronaldo – who also wore the number seven shirt he inherits – or a more mature Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cavani will learn that if he scores goals and gives his all, the worship he’ll receive at the Theatre of Dreams will be second to none… just as soon as fans return to the stands.
