Former FC Barcelona player Luis Suárez is DEAD !

Former FC Barcelona player Luis Suárez is Dead : Only two Spaniards have won the Ballon d’Or : Alfredo Di Stéfano ( in 1957 and 1959) and Luis Suarez, in 1960. The latter just passed away on Sunday morning aged 88. 

But the first winner , Di Stefano was born in Argentina, which makes Suarez the first footballer born in Spain to have received this prestigious individual distinction.

Nicknamed “The Architect” the Spaniard won the prestigious award in 1960 and later coached La Roja at the 1990 World Cup.

“Luis Suarez Miramontes has died this Sunday in Milan at 88 years old,” said Barcelona in a statement.

“He played for Barca between 1954 and 1961 before going to Inter Milan, where he is also a legend.”

Suarez was loved in Italy after becoming one of the league’s most celebrated midfielders at Inter Milan under coach Helenio Herrera in the 1960s, whom he followed from Barcelona.

“Saying goodbye to Luisito leaves us with a deep melancholy — the nostalgia of his perfect and inimitable football, which inspired generations, is combined with the memory of a unique footballer and a great, great Inter player,” wrote Inter in a statement.

He was for a long time the only footballer born on Spanish soil to have won the Ballon d’Or before Alexia Putellas entered her name twice on the list of his female winners ( in 2021 and 2022).

Born in 1935, the former Inter and Barça player marked the history of football in Spain by winning the Euro 1964 with La Roja, a tournament for which he was named the best player, and thus became the first to win the Euro and European Champion Clubs’ Cup in the same season with Inter Milan.

“I was better on the pitch than a coach”

On its website, Barça presents him as “a centerpiece of the club of the second half of the 1950s”, recognizing however that “his definitive explosion as a player took place later”.

With the Catalan club, the midfielder had notably won two Spanish championships in 1959 and 1960 and two Spanish Cups, in 1957 and 1959.

A disciple of Helenio Herrera in Catalonia, he followed the Argentinian naturalized French technician to Inter Milan in 1960, on the occasion of a transfer valued at 250 million lire, a world record for the time. In nine years in Lombardy, Suarez will have played nearly 333 games under the colors of Inter.

Meanwhile , the deceased should not be confused with the Uruguay striker Luis Suarez who netted 198 goals for Barcelona between 2014 and 2020.