This season’s Champions League has been a bit of a trip
down memory lane for Ajax. The Eredivisie champions
welcomed Zlatan Ibrahimovic back to the Amsterdam ArenA
on matchday 1 as they recorded a 1-1 draw with Paris Saint-
Germain, and on Wednesday former captain Luis Suarez will
return to the club he excelled at between 2007 and 2011.
The Uruguay international started his professional career at
Nacional before joining Groningen in the summer of 2006, but
it was at Ajax that he really made a name for himself.
Unsurprisingly, Suarez’s time in Amsterdam both started and
ended in controversial fashion.
After netting 10 goals in 29 Eredivisie appearances for
Groningen, Ajax were keen to lure the attacker to the Dutch
capital. The Euroborg side, however, had no intention of
selling their star forward and turned down a number of offers
from the ArenA outfit.
Suarez reacted furiously and took the matter to court, yet the
arbitration committee ruled that Groningen were under no
obligation to sell the forward. The case inevitably led to the
relationship breaking down between club and player, and the
Euroborg side eventually agreed to a transfer after all when
Ajax upped their offer to approximately €8 million just hours
after the verdict came in.
If there were any questions over whether Suarez was worth
that kind of money, the attacker instantly answered them with
a blistering start to his Ajax career. Six goals in his first five
Eredivisie games for the Amsterdammers were enough to
highlight his enormous potential – and things would only get
better.
During his three-and-a-half years at Ajax, the Uruguay
international was involved in no less than 179 goals in 158
appearances in all competitions and he scored an impressive
nine hat-tricks. He won the Eredivisie top scorer title once,
was voted Eredivisie player of the year in 2009-10 and was
elected Ajax Player of the Season twice.
It all ended on a sour note for Suarez in Amsterdam,
however.
One of his last actions for the current Dutch champions was
biting Otman Bakkal on the shoulder during a scoreless draw
with PSV at the Amsterdam ArenA on November 20, 2010.
The incident escaped the attention of referee Bjorn Kuipers,
but the cameras were less forgiving and he was handed a
seven-game suspension. On top of that, his reputation took a
hammering, with leading newspaper De Telegraaf infamously
referring to Suarez as “The cannibal of Ajax”.
Former team-mate Nicolai Boilesen – the only member of the
current Ajax squad who was a first-team player during
Suarez’s time at the club – has largely fond memories of the
prolific forward but acknowledges the extra baggage he
brought with him.
"Luis scored a lot of goals, but he was a bit special, too,"
Boilesen told Tipsbladet earlier this week.
"He got plenty of attention in the Dutch press after the incident
with Bakkal. But the press only really had a go at him when
he did it again in England. That incident probably got four or
five times as much attention as the one in Holland.
"But he also took on a lot of responsibility on the pitch. He
was incredibly important for the team. He was always very
dangerous inside the opponents' area.
There have been several notorious incidents involving Suarez
since he left Ajax for Liverpool in January 2011. There was
the racism row with Patrice Evra, another biting incident with
Branislav Ivanovic and a third biting case involving Giorgio
Chiellini at the World Cup this summer.
But there have also been numerous moments of brilliance on
the pitch. There were the three hat-tricks versus Norwich City
and the wonder-goal against that same opponent. There was
the 31-goal season in 2013-14 that earned him the Premier
League top scorer trophy and the Premier League player of
the year award. There was also the achievement of becoming
Uruguay’s all-time leading goal-scorer.
And on Wednesday, Suarez gets the chance to shine in the
Champions League for the first time since December 2010.
A wonderful night lies in store as he returns to European club
football's elite competition on a familiar ground. Suarez has
never made a secret of his love for Ajax and he is delighted to
play in Amsterdam once more almost four years after he left.
"It is destiny to go back after so much time and to play
against the first team I played the Champions League with,
Ajax, and for the team I have dreamed of all my life, which is
Barcelona," Suarez told Barcelona Magazine.
"It will be a very special game for me."
Irrespective of the outcome of Wednesday’s encounter, it will
indeed be a special evening for a special if somewhat
controversial player.