World Cup diary: We should all thank Luis Suarez for his consistent commitment to pure entertainment

The Diary had a long rant written here about the Savage from Salto, but let's be fair, we've been reading those all day and don't need another.

Boiled down to a few bullet points:

• He will never stop cheating, even if many were desperate to forget that as he rained amazing goals in from every angle last season.
• Biting IS worse than say Mauro Tassotti's elbow on Luis Enrique in USA 94, for which he received an eight-game ban, the longest for any World Cup crime.
• It is worse because a) it is a pre-meditated act to provoke an opponent into getting sent off, not an act of temper; and b)because it's JUST DAMN WEIRD. Cruel and unusual behaviour deserves cruel and unusual punishment.
• Suarez will never, ever learn or change his behaviour.
• As long as he plays football better than most people in the world, fans, sponsors and teams won't really care despite what they say for PR purposes.
• And finally - we should thank him for being such a constant source of amusement and new plot lines. Football is a soap opera and Suarez is a magnificent villain. We'll all miss him when he serves his ban.

Punters cash in as Suarez chomps down

We only wish we had the foresight to have a bet on Luis's lunch.  

Betting company Betsafe says 167 gamblers in about 20 countries did so, cashing in at odds of 175 to 1.

Betsafe paid out about 50,000 euros in total, marketing head Patrick Oeqvist told AFP.

“We sat down before the World Cup and we thought of which more original  bets would be fun to put up,” Oeqvist said.

“It was not easy to determine the odds, but it turned out great in the end  for those who took the bet.

“You can now bet on how long the ban will be, up to 24 months."

Uruguayan press circles the wagons

Meanwhile, Uruguayan media are doing their best to protect their hero. It's all the fault of the English media apparently, those same journalists who viciously handed him their player of the year award last season.

"’Monster’: The British press’ new manhunt against Suarez," leading newspaper El Observador said, Reuters reports. "English newspapers return to attacking the Uruguayan after the alleged biting of Chiellini," the article read. 

"Brits fretting about Suarez should first explain how they won the 1966 World Cup with a ball that wasn’t a goal," argued an article on the Tenfield soccer web page.

Leading newspaper El Pais went in to great detail on Chiellini’s "bad behaviour" in Italian clubs, as if that somehow makes him fair game to be nibbled on. You can view their video round-up here and judge for yourself.

At least Alcides Ghiggia, the man who scored the winning goal for Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup against Brazil, spoke some sense.

"I think a ban could be applied here because it’s unheard of," Ghiggia told Reuters.

"I don’t know what this kid thinks and what goes through his head... Whether you’re Uruguayan or of an other nationality, you always have to reproach these things on the field, this is not a war."

Where will curse of Jagger strike next?

In non-Suarez news, Brazilian fans are praying the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger won't back their team.

The rock star is famed in Brazil for 'cursing' whatever team he wishes well, AP reports.

Apparently on Saturday night at a concert in Rome, Jagger backed the Azzurri to beat Uruguay. We all know what happened there.

And on June 19 he tweeted the above on England's game against Uruguay. They duly lost.

According to AP, Brazil fans' obsession with the curse of Mick goes back to the selecão's defeat to Netherlands in the quarter-finals of the last World Cup, when he attended the game with his son dressed in a Brazil jersey.

He also saw the USA gubbed by Ghana and England battered 4-1 by Germany in South Africa.