3 months ago
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RIO FERDINAND has revealed the advice that Sir Alex Ferguson gave to him on how to beat Luis Suarez.
The Manchester United defender and Liverpool ace faced off with each other in five matches when at the respective clubs.
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EPASuarez, who now stars alongside Lionel Messi for Inter Miami, became one of the world’s best strikers with the Reds.
He endured a slow start to his time in England with 15 league goals in his first season and a half, but he soon began terrorising opponents, scoring 54 league goals in his final two seasons.
Legendary manager Ferguson recognised the danger of facing the Uruguayan and handed out special advice to Ferdinand to try and deal with him.
Speaking on FIVE, Ferdinand said: “There’s maybe a couple things in my 12-13 years at the club, [that] he showed me as a defender.
“I remember Luis Suarez was in crazy form when he was at Liverpool, one of the best strikers on the planet at the time, so obviously that was a detail we needed to address.
“And he just said to me, when you get him he get you one v one because that’s what he’s good at, getting an isolated defender somewhere, you’ll get that at some point. Do not nibble.
“Do not go in and try and nibble the ball, make him have to beat you. So wait, delay, say come on now you make a decision.
“And more times than not he got the ball and turned out and played to someone.
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“Whereas if I went to nibble – he’s a bit like Nani, they were reactive dribblers – he’d react to you nibbling to then go on your weakness from there and he was brilliant and the ricochets he would get.
“He was brilliant”.
Ferguson’s advice to Ferdinand seemed to work for the most part, with Suarez starting matches against the centre-back on four occasions and conceding just one goal from him.
Suarez never won a game for Liverpool with Ferdinand in the starting XI, with three defeats and one draw.
His first goal against Ferdinand came in the 2011/12 season in a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford.
One game in 2012 saw Suarez leave Ferdinand red faced as he caused him to collide with team-mate Patrice Evra while marking him, something fans pointed out.
It came during the first meeting of the teams after the Suarez-Evra racism storm, which saw Suarez banned for eight matches and fined £40,000 before refusing to shake Evra’s hand.
Ferdinand reflected on that incident last year, saying: “That Suarez one wasn’t Suarez. It was Evra! Evra absolutely mangled him!
“We got into the game and I said to Pat as the game started ‘Stay calm, Pat, stay calm’ and the guy tried to f***ing kill me, bruv, he tried to take me out and nearly snapped me in half.
“All of a sudden, I’m chasing and going along with Suarez and all of a sudden out the corner of my eye I see a red shirt thinking ‘he ain’t coming to me, Suarez is going to be in a sandwich right now’, and he missed Suarez and took me out bruv, I couldn’t believe it.
“And then when I looked at the picture after, no wonder my back was in trouble for the next five years, I took L4 and L5 right out.
“My lumbar spine is in all sorts of bother. I needed yoga, pilates, the lot straight after, it was unbelievable.
“But that’s how upset Patrice was. He was so upset, Patrice, so I understand it and at the end, I said ‘You know what I’ll let you off, but you almost ended my career man, but I understand why’.”
In the 2013/14 season – after Ferguson had left and Ferdinand was in his final year at United – Suarez led Liverpool to a 3-0 win at Old Trafford as the 81-cap England star played three minutes off the bench.
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