Just shy of one year ago, Luis Suarez lost his mind, and Uruguay have been paying for it ever since. Their superstar striker and best player bit another player on the pitch for the third time in his career, earning himself a long international ban that has left the Barcelona forward sidelined for the Copa America.
Disappointing Uruguay still adapting to Luis Suarez absence
A draw with Paraguay will see Uruguay through to the Copa America quarterfinals, but they’re still struggling without their star striker.
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It’s been an absolutely massive loss for Uruguay, and they’ve struggled to find a way to play well without him. Sure, they’ve only lost three matches without Suarez, but they’ve rarely looked convincing against even decent opposition, and have often looked mediocre at best so far in the Copa America.
They scored just two goals in the group stage, including one in Saturday's 1-1 draw with Paraguay. They looked lucky to escape their opener with Jamaica with a win, and lucky again to lose to Argentina by just a single goal. Against Paraguay, they took some more good fortune when Paraguay mysteriously left Jose Gimenez unmarked on a corner to head the ball home, but Gimenez was victimized by Lucas Barrios on another corner later on to bring La Albirroja level.
In all three matches, Uruguay had stretches of bright looking, energetic play, but they rarely kept it up for long and always gave their opponents stretches of dominance of their own, even against lowly Jamaica. Too often, Uruguay looked disjointed, befuddled, or just plain bad.
Oscar Tabarez has tried to swap players and tactics around to make up for the absence of Suarez, but the simple fact is that he just did too much for the side to replace easily. He was their best finisher, their creative hub, was always available for an outlet pass when it was needed, and his energy up top helped force defenses in to mistakes for Uruguay to exploit.
Diego Rolan and Abel Hernandez are good strikers, but they can’t make up anywhere near all of that. Nicolas Lodeiro is a good creative midfielder, but putting him in to the lineup either requires taking away a defensive presence in midfield or pulling a striker, two things that damage the balance Tabarez tries to build.
Then there’s Edinson Cavani. Poor, broken Edinson Cavani. Two years ago, he moved to Paris Saint-Germain as a superstar himself, having just scored nearly 30 goals in Serie A for Napoli, an incredibly tough task to achieve. He and Suarez had turned Uruguay into an exciting team to watch, using their sublimely well-matched skillsets to wreak all kinds of havoc on opposing defenses.
After his move to France, though, something went horribly wrong with Cavani. Gone is El Matador, the hard-charging, incredibly lethal forward who could score in so many ways after racing up and down the pitch to defend and then help create his own chance to score. In his place is a tentative, uncertain player who is just a shell of what was there before. The physical skills are still there, but they’re so rarely expressed now that it’s nigh-impossible to see the star Cavani used to be.
If Uruguay still had the good version of Cavani, they might have been able to find a way to scrape through without Suarez. For now, though, Tabarez has to find some way to get his side playing well again without him, both for their upcoming Copa America quarterfinal and their next four competitive matches after it, including at least two World Cup qualifiers. That’s a tall task, and based on the evidence we’ve seen so far, it’s hard to see things getting any better before Suarez comes back.
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