Liverpool legend faces KNEE REPLACEMENT and EARLY RETIREMENT

James Shearman

• Updated: 22 Jun 2023 11:22 BST
• 3 min read

Liverpool legend Luis Suarez could be forced to retire from professional football with a knee injury.

Suarez scored 69 Premier League goals in four seasons at Anfield and is arguably their best player of the last 20 years.

Now, the former Reds star is currently playing for Brasileiro Serie A side Gremio, having left Uruguayan club Nacional last year.

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He has a modest two goals and two assists in eight league games but may never add to his tally after recent reports.

The 26-year-old is reportedly close to retirement as a result of unbearable pain in his right knee.

There is even a chance that he gets a knee replacement, such is the difficulty that he is having.

The striker has been taking medicine and have injections in order to represent Gremio on the pitch this season.

Suarez's Gremio teammates

"[He needs] a lot of injections, a lot of medicine," Gremio president Alberto Guerra told reporters during an event at the club's stadium.

"It is reaching a limit. But we don't know where that limit is, when is his last [match]."

While midfielder Joao Paulo Bitello said Suárez "complains about his pain'' but ''sacrifices himself'' for the team.

"If that [retirement] happens it will be a huge loss for us. We get along very well, he is a great player. But his health comes before everything else," Bitello told Radio Bandeirantes.

"He has [had] a beautiful career and we have to take care for this injury not to get worse."