Sometimes football produces storylines so nourishing and wholesome that you can feel as though the sport itself is capable of writing all of the wrongs in the world. But sometimes, often more regularly, it can crush any sense of promise or hope, as the villain of the piece steals the story for themselves and rubs it in the face of their victim. And sometimes both can happen at once.
As Andre Ayew, the only player in Ghana’s current squad to be involved in their traumatic World Cup Quarter-Final defeat to Uruguay in 2010, stepped up to take a 20th minute penalty to take the lead against the same opponents, everything seemed destined to be put right.
After waiting an age to take the spot kick and then taking even longer to approach the ball, Ayew rolled a tame effort weighed down by the weight of history against the glove of Sergio Rochet and allowed bedlam to reclaim its position as the essence of football.
Within five minutes of Ayew’s miss, Suarez saw a goalbound shot headed in by teammate Giorgian De Arrascaeta to confirm this would not be a day of fairy-tale-like redemption for the Ghanaians.
Suarez then became possessed by the bedevilment of the occasion. The Uruguayan bought cheap free-kick after cheap free-kick, remaining crumpled on the floor in faux agony for as long as possible on each occasion before gesticulating to referee Daniel Siebert, and anyone that would listen, that he was in fact the one being hard done by.
Uruguay capitalised on the chaos to establish themselves as the dominant team, playing their best football of this tournament by some distance. But no-one seemed quite as inspired as Suarez. Emboldened by his role as the bad guy – he had said it was not his fault that Asamoah Gyan had missed the all-important penalty in 2010 – he clearly believed that this was his story to bring to a close at what will surely be his final World Cup.
We began to see nutmegs and turns of pace that looked to have abandoned Uruguay’s number nine some years ago, and on 32 minutes an inventive first-time flicked pass to his left set up De Arrascaeta to brilliantly volley home a second goal.
Uruguay had their first goals in more than three hours of football and seemed set, in typically brutish fashion, to be heading for a place in the Last 16 for a fourth World Cup in a row.
Ayew, along with younger brother Jordan, were both substituted at half-time, ending any hopes of familial retribution in this wider story of a revenge left unfulfilled. Just two of several million victims in what was set to be a second devastating meeting with Suarez in the space of a generation.
The second half was relatively similar for the most part. Ghana played with the wide-eyed abandon that has characterised them throughout this tournament. Uruguay looked like they could easily pick them off on the counterattack through the hard running of Darwin Nunez. Suarez was booked; he laughed.
The centre forward, now 35 and unable to snarl and harry and writhe on the turf for an hour and a half, was withdrawn on 66 minutes and allowed to observe the remainder of the destruction he had caused from the comfort of the substitutes’ bench.
But as Uruguay reverted to a philosophy of firmly sticking with what they had, 31 kilometres away at the Education City Stadium Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Hwang He-chan provided the finishing touch to a magnificent Son Heung-Min dribble. Despite their fury and fluster, the sense that they had hijacked Ghana’s destiny and re-designed it to service their own ungodly needs, Uruguay were heading out of the tournament on goals scored.
With Suarez more aware than anyone that it had been his age-defying enthusiasm and vitality that had energised a flailing team on what was a personal date with destiny, he realised sooner than most that this would not be another day of triumph for the villain as he sat removed from the battle.
With the face of their nemesis, tears streaming and frustration boiling, plastered across the stadium’s big screens, Ghanaian fans cheered, their team snatched some of the dark spirit that so often possessed Suarez and Uruguay. Despite still having a slim chance of qualifying for the next round themselves, they began to time waste both on the pitch itself and through the use of substitutes.
Come the final whistle, Uruguayan devastation was the central theme. Siebert was harangued in a way that went beyond the theatre of the gesticulating and astonishment that took place within the 90 minutes. A VAR screen was shoved to the floor as the players finally made their way back to dressing room.
For Ghana, celebration was not the order of the day for this was not a triumph, although given how events had played out on the evening and 12 years ago in South Africa, it was certainly not the worst form of defeat.
By Dan Evans - London-based football writer, previously featured in the Non-League Paper among others