Goal.com 50: Luis Suarez (20)

Say what you like about the controversial striker, and I am sure there are a fair few Ghanaians that would love to; but there is no disputing that when it comes to scoring goals, there are very few people that did it better in 2009-10 than the 23-year-old Uruguayan.

Suarez was hardly an unknown quantity as the season started, after consistently scoring goals first at Nacional, then in Groningen as well as in his first two years at Ajax. Figures of 48 goals in 84 games for the Amsterdam side represented a solid start and a goalscoring ratio of just over one every two games.

There remained doubts however. Some derided him as a flat-track bully, able to score freely against the weaker sides in the Eredivisie while coming short in the crunch games and in Europe. These critics were forced to eat their words in the face of a wonderful third season, as Suarez was simply unstoppable.

The striker hit an incredible 49 goals in 48 games, including 35 in the league as Ajax just missed out on the Eredivisie title, scoring an unbelievable 106 times on the way. Other highlights included a double hat-trick in the Dutch Cup against amateurs WHC in a record 14-1 demolition. Ajax would go on to lift the cup and few argued when Suarez was crowned Player of the Year, also coming third in the Golden Boot behind only Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney.

Luis Suarez Moment of the Season Netting a superb double against South Korea in the World Cup to take Uruguay into the quarter-final

It was in the World Cup though that Suarez truly announced himself to a worldwide audience. The Uruguayan formed a lethal attacking trident with Diego Forlan and Edinson Cavani, and this firepower combined with an impenetrable defence led the Celeste out of their group as winners and into a first semi-final for 40 years.

The Ajax man’s second and third strikes of the finals saw his side past South Korea in the last 16, but it was for his contribution in the quarter-final that most will remember his name. With the Charrua deadlocked 1-1 against Ghana, a Black Stars free-kick was heading for the back of the net until Suarez stuck out his hand to stop it on the line. Asamoah Gyan fluffed the resulting penalty, which was the last kick of normal play, and Uruguay went on to win in a shoot-out, to the obvious delight of the expelled anti-hero.

The fall-out from the match was chaotic, admittedly not helped by Suarez himself dubbing his actions the ‘new hand of God’. South Americans rallied around their new hero, while Africans felt that he had robbed the entire continent of a historic last four place (leading to a slightly awkward moment for the author, celebrating a South American win in a Ghana-dominated South London drinking establishment).

A Suarez-less Uruguay were eventually muscled out by the Netherlands, but the Ajax man and his team were received in Montevideo as national heroes, having finally put the underachieving nation back where they felt they belonged. Love him or hate him, there are few players that did more for club or country than Luis Suarez last season, and for this reason he deserves his place in this list.

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