TRANSFER TRACKER STATUS: Report
Luis Suarez lavished praise on Major League Soccer in a sitdown with ESPNFC this week, again underlining his desire to experience the league once his time at FC Barcelona is done.
Perhaps most notably, while many top players around the world often express general interest in moving to North America, the Uruguayan striker’s observations made clear that he is actually paying attention to the league’s evolution.
“MLS is a competition which has grown a lot in the last few years and you can see that with the young players that have moved there in the last two years, above all the South Americans,” he told ESPNFC. “That shows that the league wants to grow and not just bring in players of a certain age that are going to retire there. They look for that mix to make the league better.”
In the leadup to MLS Cup 2019, Suarez’s friend and countryman Nico Lodeiro told MLSsoccer.com that “sooner or later he’ll come to MLS” and that “it’s only a matter of time,” adding that Suarez often expresses interest in his MLS adventures and jokingly pledged to convince him to join his Seattle Sounders.
Suarez – who has repeatedly been linked to Inter Miami over the past year or so – pumped the brakes on that talk a bit, making clear that he’s settled in Spain.
“I didn't commit to anything [with Lodeiro],” Suarez said. “I had a conversation with him. MLS is a league that any player would be interested in and I asked him about the competition and about his teammates. … I have a contract with Barça and I am very happy here. In the future you never know, it's an attractive league.”
But the future is also on the 32-year-old’s mind.
“Given that I have been lucky to have had success at the top level for a long time, what I would look out for is stability for my family and the well-being of my children,” said the striker. “They would all make the decision along with me and the United States is a nice possibility.”
