Luis Suárez has been speaking to CBS Sports about what it was like to train with Jamie Carragher during their time together at Liverpool.
The Uruguay international was speaking before Atletico Madrid’s 2-0 defeat to Chelsea last night, where he made some interesting points.
Suárez revealed that Carragher used to go a little bit over the top in training, and had no qualms about being overly physical.
The 34-year-old said: “With the aggressiveness with which he went into training he would then take that into matches. I would say ‘hold on, we are teammates’ and he wouldn’t even look at you, wouldn’t tell you anything, and the next time he would hit you again.
“But what he liked about my style was ‘you hit me? Well, I’m going again, even if you hit me I’m going again’. He was surprised and said ‘this one, just arrived from Ajax, he comes to me and keeps picking on me so that I hit him again’ and it was like that in every training session.”
While you might be slightly baffled by Carragher’s approach, we actually feel it was hugely beneficial to Suárez in terms of adapting to English football.
If Carragher wasn’t the one to do it, another colossal, no nonsense centre-back surely would’ve roughed the ex-Ajax striker up on matchday.
In our eyes, Carragher was just helping Suárez prepare for what was to come, and you can’t say it didn’t help.
The South American scored on his Premier League debut, and never actually looked like he was struggling to adapt to life in England’s top-flight.
In total, he bagged 69 goals in 110 Premier League games.
Of course, that was also down to the natural tenacity in his game, but having teammates such as Carragher who didn’t sugarcoat things for him in training also must’ve helped.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
