#360debate: Should Luis Suarez have started for Barcelona in El Clasico?

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  • Prolonged debut: Luis Suarez has waited over four months after getting banned to make his first appearance for Barcelona.

    In the El Clasico on Saturday, Barcelona manager Luis Enrique opted to pick Luis Suarez in arguably, their biggest game of the season. Would Barca still have lost to Real Madrid if they had kept the same side that have won the last eight La-Liga matches? 

    The debate is… Should Luis Suarez have started?

    James Piercy, Deputy Editor, thinks YES:

    Hindsight dictates that Luis Enrique did the wrong thing in starting Luis Suarez on Saturday evening.

    When a team that has won eight straight without conceding, the answer to why they lost 3-1 to Real Madrid should lie in any changes Enrique made to his line-up, right?

    Well, as we know, football is far more nuanced than that and, if anything, the decision to continue Xavi in midfield – the 34 year old having started the previous week against Eibar – had a bigger effect than handing the Uruguayan a full debut.

    Despite his lack of first-team action, Suarez was one of Barcelona’s more involved players: setting up Neymar’s fine opener and then laying a chance on for Lionel Messi in the 22nd minute that he should have scored from.

    In fact if Messi had rolled in Suarez’s low cross, at 2-0 Barca would probably have gone on to win the game.

    But it wasn’t just his attacking thrust, Suarez was frequently chasing down both Marcelo and Dani Carvajal, harrying and trying to press them into making mistakes. It is that energy that will make Suarez as much a fit for Barca as his ability to score and create goals on a regular basis.

    In the long term, although he has trained with them, his 69 minutes in the company of Messi and Neymar will also have done their communication and potential synergy the world of good.

    If we can try and remove any conspiracy theories that Enrique had to start Suarez due to the attention it would receive and the fact the club haven’t spent €84m (Dh390m) on a substitute, the head coach was actually in a position where he could experiment.

    Of the few issues that had arisen in his 11 games in charge so far, one was just who to play on the right-hand side of his attacking three. Munir, Sandro and Pedro had all been deployed there to varying effect; with the promise of the former two counterbalanced by the latter’s underwhelming performances.

    So Enrique was essentially presented with the choice of two largely untested youngsters, an out-of-form forward or a maybe-not-quite-yet-fit record signing who also happens to be the third-best footballer in the world. It was a no-brainer really.

    Andy West, La Liga correspondent, thinks NO:

    Luis Enrique’s decision to start Luis Suarez in Saturday’s Clasico clearly backfired.

    It was always risky considering the facts that not only had Suarez not played for four months following his latest disciplinary misdemeanour, but also that he had never played with his new team-mates before.

    It was one thing for Suarez, roughly this time last year, to come back from a lengthy ban and hit the ground running for Liverpool – he had already played nearly 100 games for the Merseyside club and was therefore simply settling back into a well-worn groove.

    Playing for the very first time with players like Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi – who have been together for years and know each other’s every move inside out – was an altogether different proposition, especially against world-class opposition such as Real Madrid.

    Taking those factors into consideration, Enrique would have been better served introducing Suarez from the bench to give his team fresh impetus for the final stages.

    Even if they had been trailing, as they were when Suarez was withdrawn with 20 minutes remaining, it would have given Enrique the best possible chance of changing the course of the game in Barca’s favour.

    After all, and no disrespect to the little winger, but who would you rather see coming off the bench when your team is in need of a couple of late goals: Pedro, or Suarez?

    Of course, Suarez did not play badly, exerting a significant impact upon the game by playing a straightforward but well executed pass for Neymar to score the opening goal, and also delivering a superb cross into the path of Messi, who should have made it 2-0.

    But he faded badly after 20 minutes or so, and that appeared to be the limit of his endeavour – the last 20 minutes could well have been more fruitful than the first 20.

    We’ll never know whether Suarez as a sub would have been more decisive than Suarez as a starter, but as a potential game-changer, Enrique missed out on a big opportunity.​

    What do you think? Leave your comments below.

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