Luis Suarez became the first player in seven years, who wasn’t either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, to win the Pichichi award and be named La Liga’s top goalscorer to cement his claim as the world’s best player.
The Uruguayan netted an incredible 40 goals in 35 games as he led his side to another La Liga title as Barcelona edged rivals Real Madrid by a point. After achieving the impossible last year, completing a historic treble, it seemed unlikely Barca could repeat that feat this season.
Yet the Catalans managed to secure a league and cup double with Suarez being the centrepiece of the world’s most proficient attacking trident made up of himself, and the two other South Americans Neymar and Messi.
Since the emergence of Messi and Ronaldo on to the world stage, the debate has always been which one of the two is the best? Messi has five Ballon d’Or titles to Ronaldo’s three, which highlights the dominance the two have held for near enough the past decade.
During this period of dominance, there have been few contenders to the throne of the being proclaimed the world’s best. Both forwards consistently out did one another to try and assert their dominance resulting in the rest of the pack being left by the way side in awe of their astonishing talents.
However, Suarez’s scintillating performances on a weekly basis have firmly placed him in the discussion for the next Ballon d’Or vote.
Not only has he outscored Messi this year, he has provided equally as many assists as the Argentine setting up 16 goals for his teammates. He has become Barca’s most influential player and has proved his worth every time he took to the field this season.
His performances have resembled his last season on Merseyside with Liverpool where he was the catalyst for their title charge in 2013/14, which so very nearly reaped the rewards. It was the closest Liverpool had come to a title in 24 years and any time the Uruguayan didn’t feature that season his absence was felt.
Of course, Suarez still states that Messi is the greatest player on the planet, which is testament to his change in character during his time in Spain, but the feeling is that he has for now usurped Messi’s crown as the undisputed best.
If analysing his season from a purely statistical point of view wasn’t enough, if you judge the season on trophies he has two more than Ronaldo (depending on the outcome of the Champions League final) and the same as Messi. Now ruling out the Portuguese forward simply because of that and the fact that he has outperformed Messi it’s clear that Suarez is the closest person in a very long time to actually have a realistic chance of breaking the hold which these two players have over the award.
The voting for the Ballon d’Or is based on a players performance over the course of a calendar year; so providing Suarez starts of next season the way he finished this one we may well see the end of the Messi/Ronaldo supremacy.
No doubt the debate will rage on till the day of the awards ceremony but rest assured that we this year we may well see a man, who was once banned from football for four months, being crowned as the best in the world.
Not a bad turn around all things considered…