Barcelona striker Luis Suarez joined Atletico Madrid earlier this summer and Ronald Koeman has revealed that the Uruguayan striker could have stayed at Barcelona and proved him wrong.
Suarez was deemed surplus to requirements at Camp Nou and he chose to leave in search of regular first-team football.
So far he has been quite impressive for Diego Simeone’s team.
It seems that Koeman wanted the striker to stay and fight for his place in the starting lineup but Suarez chose regular first-team football over a squad role at Barcelona.
The 33-year-old is one of Barcelona’s best-ever players and he helped the club win the Champions League and four Spanish league titles during his six years at the club.
Suarez is also the third-highest goalscorer in Barcelona’s history.
“In the case of Suarez, it had become very difficult for him to start playing and I made that known to him. He found it difficult, but I never had any trouble with him at all,” Koeman told NOS.
“He trained normally, trained well. He finally made the choice to leave and I said: ‘If you don’t leave, for whatever reason, then you are just one of the group, then you can prove that I was wrong’. He could have stayed, yes.
“I’m good with Luis, but the club felt that we had to rejuvenate. You can see that now in the team. Ansu Fati plays, he is 17 years old. We have Pedri, 17 years old, who gets his chances. Ronald Araujo is there at the age of 21. Trincao falls in a lot and is 20 years old, and we have taken Sergino Dest, who is 19. Those are all players for the future.”
