Luis Suarez showed his appreciation to the fans after scoring a hat trick for Liverpool.
LONDON — It can be a tough call, being the principal owner of teams that straddle the Atlantic Ocean.
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John Henry solved the time and distance problem on Saturday. He watched on television as his soccer club, Liverpool, thumped West Bromwich Albion, 4-1, across the pond in England.
The boss used his Twitter feed to communicate the thrill of watching Luis Suárez net the goal of a connoisseur.
Come nightfall, Henry was made to suffer a little in St. Louis as his Boston Red Sox were beaten, 5-4, by the Cardinals in the World Series.
It was, however, Henry’s call in the summer that kept Suárez a Liverpool player when the Uruguayan had done everything short of mutiny to try to get away to join Arsenal instead.
The Arsenal offer tried to exploit a £40 million buyout clause in Suárez’s contract. In fact, Arsenal, whose chief shareholder is also American, cheekily tried to add one pound to that bid.
Liverpool’s response was that the player was not for sale — despite his public show of disloyalty, and despite Suárez’s being barred at the time from playing for anyone after he bit the shoulder of an opponent, Chelsea’s Bransilav Ivanovic, late last season.
Henry indicated at the time that Liverpool was a buying club, not a seller.
Brendan Rodgers, his coach, believed that once the player was back in full training, the irrepressible desire of the Uruguayan would make keeping him the right call. Many disagreed. They argued that, however street smart he can be in motion, a disaffected player is poison in the camp.
After five full games, during which Suárez and striker Daniel Sturridge have scored 10 goals between them, the decision of the coach and owner is looking good. “Luis. Magician” was the succinct tweet made by Henry 12 minutes into the game at Anfield Stadium on Saturday.
His fingers made the response to the dancing feet, the daring body swerves, the imperishable determination by which Suárez scored the first goal.
Magical, indeed. It was almost as if Lionel Messi had moved to Liverpool, particularly the cunning way Suárez flicked the ball between the legs of Jonas Olsson before darting around the defender and, too swift for two more West Brom men, finished off his goal.
Suárez’s explanation for seeking a move during the summer break was that, at 26, he was desperate to play in the Champions League. Arsenal is in that competition, Liverpool is not.
By implication, Liverpool’s response was “Luis, you want European soccer, we want European soccer, get your head down and get us there.”
Apart from his intricate footwork, Suárez used his head twice on Saturday. His second goal was an incredible header, powered from 17 yards and generating a speed worked out by computer technology to be 38 miles, or 61 kilometers, per hour, by the time it entered the net.
And to round off his hat trick, Suárez leaped higher than any West Brom defender to guide another header home.
Those who know the way Suárez trains are not surprised that Liverpool kept him, despite the insult of his attempted summer defection. It will not shock those insiders, either, if he turns on his magic this Saturday when Liverpool travels to Arsenal for a game right at the very top of the Premier League.
But, argue the detractors and the doubters, what about the disrespect, the disharmony a rebellious player must have in the locker room?
And what about the feelings of Sturridge, the Englishman made to run double the distance and run alone in the weeks when Suárez is, through one suspension or another, not on the field?
Well, Sturridge appears to be happy to go it alone up front for Liverpool when need be.
And perfectly content, or at least persuaded, to drop a little deeper and to make runs for Suárez when they are paired in attack.
Indeed, after the Uruguayan’s hat trick was in the bag, the Englishman took his own bow with a goal that, if it were possible, almost exceeded those of Suárez.
Again it combined instinct with audacity. Again it looked uncoachable.
Again this final nail in the 4-1 Liverpool victory made the hairs stand on the back of the heads of the 44,747 spectators inside the stadium.
Sturridge was in full flight, way outside the West Bromwich goal area, when he unleashed a shot, a powerful chip, really, that arched beyond the goalkeeper’s reach and dropped inches beneath the crossbar.
No tweet came from Boston. Maybe the owner was by then on his way to the baseball park. Maybe Henry had seen enough, and written enough on his other sport.
Possibly the nerves had by then set in.
When you invest so much in human beings, one set with the ball at their feet, the other with a club in their hands, this trans-Atlantic pull must be draining on the emotions.
The thing about ownership is that you are paying other people to do your bidding.
As the Italian tycoon Gianni Agnelli used to say when he owned Juventus, it was a wicked indulgence signing players to do what he himself wished to be able to do on the grass.
The field was his canvas. The artists had to be somebody else.
Agnelli would have adored the good, and smiled benevolently at the roguish side of Luis Suárez.
But the Italian was, aside from his skiing and his other athletic pursuits, essentially a one sport kind of guy. He could never have watched his soccer on one side of the pond, and fretted over his baseball on the other. Luis would have satisfied him, St. Louis maybe a town too far.
JIMMY ODUMUYIWA @le_visibilitybloG 