Right. Luis Suárez. Thirty nine years old. Retired from international football in 2024. Had his big farewell. Tears. Applause. Standing ovation. The whole lot. Beautiful send off. Gone. Done. Finished.

Except he's not finished, is he? He's sat there going, "Actually, you know what, one more wouldn't hurt." And honestly? I've never felt closer to another human being in my entire life.

In my day, when you retired, you retired. You did your lap of honour, you got your testimonial, someone gave you a crystal decanter, and you opened a pub. That was it. You didn't come back. You couldn't come back. Your knees wouldn't let you. I managed lads at Hartlepool who were done at 33 and they were grateful for it.

But Suárez? This fella has bitten three people on a football pitch. He's been banned from football entirely at one point. He's played at the very top level for Barcelona, Liverpool, Atlético Madrid. He scored goals that would make you weep. And now at 39 he's going, "Yeah, I fancy a crack at one more World Cup in the blazing American summer heat." The man is absolutely certifiable. And I love him for it.

Don't get me started on modern players and their "managing workloads." Suárez doesn't manage workloads. Suárez manages chaos. Always has. He's the kind of player who'd run through a brick wall and then complain the wall wasn't thick enough. At Inter Miami he's still turning up. Still causing problems. Still doing that thing with his face where you're not sure if he's smiling or about to eat someone.

That's the problem with modern football. Everyone plans their exit six months in advance. They do the social media post. They do the documentary. They do the retirement announcement with the piano music and the black and white footage. And then three months later they're bored out of their minds because it turns out golf is rubbish and daytime television is worse.

I know this because I've lived it. I retired from management in 2019. By 2020 I was screaming at the telly during League Two highlights and ringing my old assistant manager at midnight to tell him Accrington were playing a flat back four wrong. Retirement is a disease. The only cure is going back.

Now look. Can Suárez actually do it? That's the question. He's 39. The World Cup is in June, in America, where it'll be approximately nine thousand degrees. Uruguay are in a group with others who can actually run. This isn't a testimonial at a half empty stadium in Montevideo. This is the real thing.

But here's what people forget. Suárez has never needed pace. He's never needed to be the fittest man on the pitch. He needs half a yard, a sniff, and a goalkeeper who blinks. That's it. That's always been it. He could be in a wheelchair and he'd still find a way to get on the end of a cross and make a defender look stupid.

Uruguay's manager would be mad to say no. You bring him along. You stick him on the bench. You wait until the 70th minute when you need a goal and you unleash the most unhinged striker in the history of the sport. Nobody wants to deal with a 39 year old Suárez at half past nine in the evening when it's still 35 degrees and he's fresh off the bench with that look in his eye.

In my day we called blokes like this "proper footballers." Couldn't kill them with a shovel. They just kept coming back. And they always scored.

Do it, Luis. Come back. Score a screamer. Bite nobody. Ride off into the sunset for real this time.

Or don't. Come back again in 2030. I'll still be here. Shouting at the telly.