For a man who personifies the rugged, uncompromising image of an Italian centre-half, Giorgio Chiellini breaks into a disarming smile when the subject of his first meeting with Luis Suárez since that bite in Brazil is raised with the Juventus defender.
The pre-match handshake prior to Saturday’s Champions League final in Berlin between Juventus and Barcelona is likely to generate almost as much interest as the game itself. After all Suárez will be encountering not only Chiellini, but the Italian’s club team-mate, Patrice Evra, who was infamously subjected to racist abuse from the Uruguayan forward during Manchester United’s Premier League fixture against Liverpool at Anfield in October 2011.
Suárez then refused to shake Evra’s hand before kick-off at a league game at Old Trafford four months later, because the Liverpool forward was still aggrieved by the severity of his eight-match suspension, but despite being left with teeth marks in his shoulder as a result of Suárez’s assault during a World Cup group match in Natal last June, Chiellini insists that he bears no grudge against the £75m forward and will happily shake his hand in the Olympiastadion.
“Ha! I will not just shake his hand but also embrace him as well,” Chiellini said, when asked how he will greet Suárez. “Anyone who knows me a little knows that I am truly like that.
“For me nothing changes. It’s the same thing as marking [Karim] Benzema or Chicharito against Real Madrid … really, honestly.
“Ever since we overcame Real to play this game against Barcelona, the only thing that people have wanted to ask me about is Luis Suárez, but really, I have no problem, I don’t need to hear from him and I have no hard feelings.
“It happened, he was sent off. Uruguay won and I lost, so in the end, the only thing I was really sorry about was being out of the World Cup.”
Having bitten an opponent for the third time in his career – Otman Bakkal and Branislav Ivanovic were Suárez’s previous victims – the then-Liverpool forward was immediately banned from all forms of football for four months and sent home in disgrace from the World Cup, albeit to a hero’s welcome in Uruguay.
Since returning from his lengthy suspension in October, however, Suárez has helped form a lethal attacking triumvirate with Lionel Messi and Neymar that has scored 120 goals in all competitions for Barcelona.
And it is Suárez’s goal threat, rather than his unsavoury side, which Chiellini insists is the only cause for alarm in Berlin.
“Of course I am not afraid of him,” Chiellini said when asked whether he feared a repeat of Suárez’s dark side. “That is a joke isn’t it?
“Look, I only think of him in technical terms on the pitch, his movement and his great quality as a footballer.
“Beyond that, I have no problem with him. There is no problem, honestly, and I think it’s the same for him.”
In Turin, it is the unique threat posed by Messi which is dominating the build-up to Saturday’s game – Juventus’s first appearance in the Champions League final since losing on penalties to AC Milan in 2003, reports Telegraph.co.uk.
The stunning goal scored by the Argentine during Barcelona’s Copa del Rey final victory over Athletic Bilbao has merely served to heighten awareness of his mercurial talents, but while admitting that Messi can sometimes prove unstoppable, Chiellini claims he would not have been able to score the Bilbao goal against Italian defenders.
“In Italy he probably would have scored it differently,” Chiellini said. “But it would have been more difficult for Messi to score that goal in Italy because we are a bit different in our defensive and offensive mentality.
“In Spain, they play much better football but they defend a lot worse. And we defend a lot better, so who knows?
“But Messi can score when he wants and we have to be strong to face him.
“It’s difficult to make comparisons with the past and say who is stronger, Messi or Maradona or Pele, but Messi at this moment is the God of Football, the number one of the last 30 or 40 years.
“He is certainly the outstanding player of our sport.”
Although Juventus ended the campaign by winning their fourth successive Serie A title, Massimiliano Allegri’s team go into Saturday’s final as heavy underdogs against a Barça team aiming to win the club’s fourth Champions League in nine years.
But with Juventus climbing from the depths of the 2006 Calciopoli match-fixing scandal, which saw Italy’s most successful and best supported club relegated to Serie B and stripped of three championships, Chiellini insists that Juve can climb another mountain by overcoming Barcelona.
“It’s certainly a very important week and a coronation of what we have done over several years with Juventus,” the 30-year-old said. “We go to Berlin with great humility but knowing that we have our chances.
“It will certainly be a difficult game for us against a great opponent, but if we get to do things well and limit their players from showing their great quality, we have a possibility to win.”
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