Inter Miami's Luis Suarez opens up about scoring struggles, playing with friends, his future

MIAMI — Luis Suarez has never been shy about sharing his feelings, on or off the field. The 38-year-old Uruguayan forward and Inter Miami star is known for his fiery personality, no matter how major or insignificant the game.

He throws his body and soul into every play and argues with referees. He lets teammates know when he is dissatisfied with errant passes. That passion for the sport is a key reason Suarez is one of the most lethal strikers in history with 507 goals over 841 games during his career.

He also is extremely self-critical, and nobody is more aware of his scoring struggles this season than him. Last season, he was an MLS Golden Boot finalist with 21 goals and nine assists in 30 games. This season, with 10 games to go, Suarez has six goals and 10 assists. Two of those goals came in the past three games, against the Los Angeles Galaxy and Pumas.

Suarez’s grimaces with every missed shot and was extremely forthcoming speaking with reporters on the eve of Wednesday’s Leagues Cup quarterfinal between Inter Miami and Mexican club Tigres.

“Obviously, on a personal level, being a forward, one wants to be involved in goals and help the team as a goal scorer, and I know I can do more to support the team,” Suarez said. “Sometimes these circumstances happen in football, where you have a bad stretch. But there are moments where I am helping the team, I am helping the club grow, and that gives me a sense of calm.”

Over all competitions, he has 15 assists this season, which ties Jordi Alba for a team record. Suarez smiled upon hearing that statistic, and remarked: “I love to score goals, and get mad when I don’t, but to be a No. 9 and be among a group of players with the most assists is a virtue. It shows I am a generous No. 9, even though we are supposed to have big egos. I like for the team to win and as long as I can help do that, I am happy.”

Suarez has been playing professionally for 20 years and learned to drown out the noise from critics dating back to his debut as an 18-year-old with Uruguayan club Nacional. He said he never lost confidence, even when he went scoreless for long stretches.

“First of all, you can’t pay attention to what people say, especially at my age,” he said. “Critics don’t bother me. There are many players who let criticism bother them, and that’s bad for you, your teammates and people around you. You have to surround yourself with people who transmit positivity and support.”

He insisted he doesn’t obsess over errant shots or missed scoring chances.

“In my debut with Nacional in 2005, the team missed 11 scoring chances and eight of those were mine,” he said. “I was 18 years old. Imagine, if I let that get me down, I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am today. I never listen to the critics. And, I don’t buy when people say marvelous things about me, either.

“I just work hard and always try to do the best I can.”

He said his scoring drought this season was due partly to his slow start.

“What hurt my performance most this year was the start of the season, after such a long off-season vacation it took some time to get back into game shape,” Suarez said.

“As the games go one, the more you play, you get into a rhythm. I hear people say that when athletes play a lot of games, they have trouble recovering, but that has never been an issue with me. Of course, if there are several weeks in a row with three games a week, like we had during the Club World Cup, you can get exhausted. But for the most part, we love to play, and we can handle a game every three or four days.”

Suarez added that he is enjoying life in South Florida with his former Barcelona teammates Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Javier Mascherano, and most recently Rodrigo De Paul, with whom he played at Atletico Madrid.

He appreciates the more relaxed lifestyle and increased family time. He is delighted that his children can see him enjoying his job so much but dismissed any suggestion that he and the others are here on vacation.

“This is a beautiful era that we are living together as friends and teammates,” Suarez said. “We share a lot of history together and we are now in a stage of our careers where each day the end is closer, so you enjoy each day more and we are trying to do our best on the field.”

He said he realized after so many years as an elite athlete in Europe that fans don’t remember what you did three or four days ago. They focus only on the present. And in the United States, he is enjoying a better work-life balance. But, he insists he is working as hard as ever.

"There are critics who think we come to MLS to retire or be on vacation, and you all can see that is not true,” he said. “We have not stopped since we arrived. We are playing all the time. I keep fighting on the field, competing hard. That is in our DNA. We want to win everything. That is what carried us to the top of our careers, and we will keep being that way until we finish playing.”

Suarez and Messi played at Barcelona together from 2014 to 2020 and formed one of the most dangerous duos in recent memory. He scored 198 goals in six seasons for the Spanish team and became close friends with Messi.

Their families also forged a bond. Along with Alba and Busquets they won the UEFA Champions League and Club World Cup in 2015 and won four league titles.

Before joining Barcelona, Suarez had won the European Golden Shoe with Liverpool. Among South American players in history, he ranks fourth with 69 national team goals behind Messi (112), Neymar (79) and Pele (77).

He signed a one-year contract extension at the end of last season and is making $1.5 million this year. He said Tuesday that he has not made plans yet for 2026, though he would like to retire alongside Messi, who is expected to sign an extension for next season.

“As for my future, I will see at the end of the season, see how I performed over the whole year,” he said. “When it comes time to make the decision, you never know. You have plans, sometimes they work out, sometimes they don’t. Right now, I am focusing on this stage of my career.”