Luis Suárez Announces Return To Boyhood Club

Former Barcelona goalscorer Luis Suárez finally made his decision as to where he will play until the end of the year.  After days of speculation and pleading from Nacional fans, the Uruguayan international decided that he would go play at the club where he started his professional career.

On Tuesday, Suárez shared a video with all his followers about his decision after rumors had him looking elsewhere in an effort to have continuity leading up to the World Cup in Qatar. For him, this would be the opportunity to join Virgilio Rocha as the only Uruguayan player to take part in four World Cups.  In the process, he could also be joined by Edinson Cavani, Diego Godín, Fernando Muslera, and Martín Cáceres in reaching that feat.

“First of all, I wanted to thank you for the love that both I and my family have received in recent days, which has been impressive, all the messages that have reached us. That touched our hearts in this situation that we had to decide and well, it was inevitable to accept this opportunity to have the possibility of playing again in Nacional and we have a pre-agreement with the club”, he said.

“In the next few hours, details will be finalized and we hope that the agreement that we all want will be reached and that we can all enjoy this new stage and see each other in the coming days,” he added.

This announcement was quickly followed up by a tweet from the club saying “Pre-agreement”

This confirmed that Luis Suárez would be returning to play in Uruguayan football for the first time in 16 years.

During his first stint at Nacional, Suárez became the young star in that league as he scored 12 goals in 35 matches while leading the Tricolor to two league titles during his time there. Shortly thereafter, he would make his first move to Europe where he ended up at Dutch Groningen.

That said, he last played at the Gran Parque Central last year with the national team as there were there was remodeling going on over at the Estadio Centenario.

In addition to that, he was part of the much vaunted 2007 U-20 side that featured both him and Edinson Cavani on the attack, but was upset in that year’s World Cup by the United States.  As disappointing as that result might have been, it did set up one of the most lethal attacking duos in international football for more than a decade.

According to Uruguayan daily Ovacion, the third all-time leading goalscorer in Blaugrana history will return to his native country on a three-month contract with an option to go beyond that should the player want to stay.  During this time, the 35-year-old striker will be eligible to play in the domestic tournament as well as in the quarterfinals of the Copa Sudamericana where Nacional will face Atlético-GO.

Other Destinations That Suárez Was Speculated With

Anyone that knows is aware that Luis Suárez would have offers from various teams from Europe, South America and even in North America. He was given offers from teams like Sevilla as well as River Plate in Argentina. The latter was rejected as one of the conditions for his to play was to take part in the Copa Libertadores, but the Salto native decided to give the thumbs as River wanted him during while he was still under contract with Atleti.

There was also lots of talk of Suárez looking elsewhere, specifically Major League Soccer, as there were rumors that had him linked to Seattle Sounders, LAFC and even (briefly) the LA Galaxy.  Back in 2020, there were also rumors of Luis Suárez possibly going to Inter Miami to hopefully see a reunion between him and Leo Messi in South Florida.

WIth all the enthusiasm that this announcement created, one has to keep in mind that Suárez has not played a match since May 22.  He was absent during Uruguay’s friendly matches in the United States as he was recovering from a knee issue that was bothering him for a greater part of the last year.