2015 draws to a close and VAVEL UK present our first ever Top 50 Players in the World.
Voted for by both editors and writers at VAVEL UK, we have produced a refined list of the best players of this year. Today, we'll reveal the 10th best player of 2015 with Number One on January 1st, New Year's Day.
Keep following to see who has made it and who hasn't. There were some lengthy discussions over who slipped into this list.
You can see the Top 41-50 here. You can see the Top 31-40 here. You can see the Top 21-30 here. You can see the Top 11-20 here.
And so, for the third best player in the world, Luis Suarez.
3 - Luis Suarez (FC Barcelona/Uruguay)
It took a little while for Luis Suarez to adjust to his new surroundings in Barcelona. But now, in his second full season under Enrique, Suarez has taken his game to another level. When Lionel Messi was sidelined for a few weeks with an injury, it was the Uruguayan (and Neymar) who provided a plethora of the goals to take his side to the top of the La Liga table.
Currently, he is at 13 league goals on the season but has scored a total of 14 goals across all competitions to date. Compared to last season, Suarez only scored a grand total of 14 times in La Liga action and is well on the pace to break his record at this club.
For his country over the summer though, he decided to not play in the Copa America in order to rest up for the 2015/16 campaign. As a result of his absence, Uruguay failed to get out of the quarterfinals losing to the eventual champions. If he had been on the pitch in Chile who knows how far his country could have gone?
At his first season with the club, he was banned until the middle of October after his biting incident and did not suit up for La Blaugrana until the first Clasico of 2014. And Luis Enrique was really unsure of where to place his to forward as he often played him behind Lionel Messi or out to the right flank. Eventually though, he would move Messi to the left and Suarez alone up top and that would pay off as they went on to win the league title.
As soon as Lionel Messi returns to 100% health and finds his Balon d’Or winning form, Barcelona will be back to being one of the toughest clubs to beat in the world. Luis Suarez is becoming more and more unselfish, which is incredibly scary. He knows now that if he does not have the right angle to shoot on goal, that anyone else inside the eighteen yard box has the quality to find the back of the net more times than not; which did not necessarily happen at Liverpool where he was the most talented footballer in the offensive third.
Essentially, the 28-year-old South American does not miss many opportunities to find the back of the net and perhaps his best performance of this campaign came in the Club World Cup semi-final. Barcelona were resting both Lionel Messi and Neymar so it was Suarez who took over the show. He scored all three goals in a rout of Guangzhou Evergrande as his side advance to the final, and would eventually win this competition.
After another hat trick earlier this season on his anniversary of first suiting up in the blue and red white striped shirt, Enrique had this to say of his superstar. “Luis Suarez brings us a lot. What he gives you is priceless and unquestionable. He has that power in the area and is irreplaceable.”
Suarez said of his three goals, “It is a special hat trick, coming one year after my debut. The end result is that we won a game we were losing. We’re already thinking about the next [game].”
