Luis Suarez always planned for Nacional return, but that doesn’t make homecoming any less surreal

Some time ago on a brick wall outside Parque Central, someone painted the Nacional badge and wrote a message in the club’s red, white and blue. It’s not a particularly polished effort, the letters uneven in size, hurriedly drawn and the badge wonky, the whole thing pretty rough, but somehow it is better for it. And there’s something about the message, something meaningful in its simplicity. “I’ll always come back to see you,” it reads.

Y volvió pic.twitter.com/GSIt8GKBjb

— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) August 1, 2022

This week, Luis Suarez did.

Sixteen years after he departed as a heartbroken teenager desperately following his girlfriend across the Atlantic even if Groningen wasn’t exactly Barcelona, Suarez has re-joined the club where his career began. He was 14 when he first walked in, 18 when he walked out. He is 35 now.

As he made his way to Parque Central for his presentation, a biplane flew past trailing a banner reading “Suarez to Nacional” — the message that started as a request, one of those mad ideas that no one really thinks will happen, was now a reality. The video of it was recorded by Sofi, the girlfriend for whom he left home and the wife with whom he returned.

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Delfi, Benja and Lauti, their kids, were with them and so were many more, the impact huge. This kind of thing doesn’t really happen anymore. Some 20,000 tickets had been sold to welcome back the kid who made his debut for them in May 2005 and left the following summer having won the league. Suarez was handed the No. 9 shirt by Emmanuel Gigliotti, the striker who said it was an “honour” to give it up. There was a message from Lionel Messi: “I know what it means for you to go home,” he smiled. A video played with footage of Suarez from years ago at Nacional and beyond, accompanied by track from the Montevideo band No Te Va A Gustar. “Come home when you want,” it ran.

“I’m here…