Suarez delights in proving doubters wrong: 'No one will get rid of me'
It seems Luis Suarez enjoys showing Barcelona what they're missing.
Following a difficult summer transfer window in which a tearful Suarez was ousted from the Camp Nou, the striker is reveling in silencing his doubters with Barca's La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid.
"I still feel like I'm enjoying this moment that I'm in today, in football's elite," the 34-year-old said, according to ESPN's Alex Kirkland and Rodrigo Faez. "Being at Atletico, you're in football's elite. Some people didn't believe that I could still be at this level. I've got the same enthusiasm."
He added: "No one will get rid of me. I'll decide when I go."
Barcelona were so desperate to take Suarez off their wage bill that they paid out some of the remainder of his contract. Atleti swooped to sign the Uruguayan marksman on a free transfer but could owe Barcelona up to €6 million in performance-related bonuses at the end of his two-year deal, according to The Guardian's Sid Lowe.
It could become one of the biggest bargains in the history of Spanish football.
Suarez has scored 16 league goals for Atletico Madrid this season. His rate is better than everybody at Barcelona, including Lionel Messi (who has 15). Barcelona's attack-minded contingent of Antoine Griezmann, Ousmane Dembele, Ansu Fati, Martin Braithwaite, Francisco Trincao, and Pedri have 19 goals between them.
Atleti are five points clear at the top of La Liga and eight points better off than Barca.
"I'm one of those players who has always characterized himself as being stubborn," Suarez said. "When I try something two, three, four times and it doesn't work out, I'm not one of those players who will let their head drop, who will disappear. I'll keep trying, because I've been that way since I was a kid.
"I used to get criticized when I was 18 years old," he continued, "and the coaches I had, like (Suarez's former coach at Nacional) Martin Lasarte, used to say: 'Don't look at the goals that the 18-year old kid is missing, if he misses seven or eight. Focus on the fact that he's still trying a third time, or a fourth time. That's what will make him go far.'
"Those words stayed with me and I will be like that, I am like that."