The striker will not play football again for four months, but the coach of the nation he would have been facing on Saturday says the Celeste remain a force without him

By Greg Stobart at the Estadio Maracana

Colombia coach Jose Pekerman refused to be drawn on the “sensitive” issue of Luis Suarez’s four-month ban ahead of the crucial last 16 World Cup clash against Uruguay on Saturday.

Suarez will miss the match after the Uruguay striker received a nine-match international ban and a four-month suspension from all football for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini in their final Group D match.

In his pre-match press conference at the Maracana, Pekerman refused to be drawn on the issue and insisted the Celeste remain a “top notch” team without their star man.
 
Pekerman said: “Listen, this is a very sensitive and very delicate issue. I understand it but our concern is Uruguay as a team. We are preparing to face their team tomorrow and that is all.

“We’ve always thought only of Uruguay. They are a top notch opponent that we are going to face. It is a very experienced team with a lot of abilities and a successful cycle.

“They were always going to be a difficult opponent anyway. I’m very busy with Colombia and our problems and considerations. We will think about our own team.”

Colombia head into the game in fine form after winning all three of their group matches, and Pekerman has urged his players to continue their momentum and book a place in the quarter-final.

“This is a huge test for us. We know the abilities of our opponent and their experience,” he added.

“This will be a demanding test for Colombia. We will have to show that we are up for it. It’s important not to lose the optimism and faith we have.

“We are seeing in the World Cup that a lot of new things are happening that didn’t happen in past World Cups. It makes it a beautiful tournament.”

High-profile figures from across the world of sport have called for the striker to seek expert help over his persistent indiscipline

Jerome Valcke has called for Uruguay’s Luis Suarez to seek help after being found guilty of biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup.

Suarez has received a nine-game suspension and a four-month ban from all football-related activity for biting the Juventus star during Uruguay’s 1-0 victory over Italy in Group D.

The Celeste won the match and sealed their route to the last 16, but will be without Suarez for the rest of the tournament following his sanction.

“He should go for treatment,” Valcke told reporters.

“It was seen by hundreds of millions of people. It is not what you want your kids, what you want the little (ones) who are playing football around the world, to see at a World Cup.

“It is not Liverpool who is punished. It is the player who is punished and what he did has not only happened in international games.

“So the Disciplinary Committee took into consideration the past events and the past behaviour of Luis Suarez and that is why they made their decisions.”

Suarez has already been involved in biting controversies on two previous occasions, having been banned for seven matches in 2010 for gnawing on PSV’s Otman Bakkal during his time at Ajax.

Most recently, he was suspended for a further 10 games after biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic while on duty for Liverpool in the Premier League.

International players’ union FifPro have also called for Suarez to “receive all the support he needs”.

A statement from the organisation read: “The focus should be on the rehabilitation and serious treatment of the player. FifPro believes that treatment must be a part of any sanction.”

Suarez, for his part, has denied the allegations, suggesting that the altercation with Cheillini was little more than a coming together between the two men.

The striker has flown back to Montevideo, while his team-mates are preparing to face Colombia at the Maracana on Saturday.

The Uruguay striker has been handed a nine-game ban and a four-month suspension from all football-related activity, and Andy Barton thinks he should seek professional advice

Luis Suarez has been urged by a leading sports psychologist to seek help following his bite on Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup.

The Uruguay international has been handed a nine-game suspension and four-month ban from all football-related activity after biting Chiellini in his side’s 1-0 win over Italy on Tuesday.

Suarez, who has twice been at the centre of similar controversies previously in his career, is once again in the spotlight, with the ban from Fifa set to rule him out of the World Cup and a section of the Premier League season.

Mental performance coach Andy Barton, who has worked with athletes across a range of sports, believes Suarez could again bite an opponent if he does not seek help and urged him to treat the ban as a “wake-up call”.

“It could happen [again]. It’s happened three times now and it could happen [again],” Barton told Perform.

“But he may be able to get help with it and find alternative ways of responding. He’s not doing it on purpose – it’s not a calculated thing. They’re in-built safety mechanisms or ways of dealing with frustrations.

“Hopefully he’ll get some help and people won’t be too harsh on him. It’s an unhelpful thing to be doing – for his career, his team and if he doesn’t [get help] you may find players purposefully start winding him up to get him to do that kind of thing.

“So it’s in his best interests to deal with it and hopefully it’ll be a wake-up call for him to get the right kind of help.”

Suarez has been backed by Uruguay team-mates and even the country’s president, despite receiving widespread condemnation from elsewhere in the world.

Barton is confident the player, who previously bit Otman Bakkal when playing for Ajax and Branislav Ivanovic earlier in his Liverpool career, can adapt his behaviour should he receive support.

“I don’t know what help he had after the last couple of incidents but yeah, I think it could be changed to hopefully make a difference,” he added.

“Anything can be changed – it seems to be something that’s become a habit and something he maybe had from childhood as a defence mechanism.

“I see people make changes of that kind all the time so I’m a firm believer it can be changed.

“We have triggers and we have things that set things off. We saw it with Zinedine Zidane a few years back where he completely lost it [when headbutting Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final]. We all have these triggers so it could be a level of frustration, it could be aggression, it could be anger, fear.

“Certain triggers, in the right or wrong place, can set you off.

“That’s been his response and I wonder whether it’s something he’s had from childhood – his way of dealing with it is to bite.”