It's 'win at all' costs for Suarez, Uruguay

LUIS Suarez and Uruguay will resort to cheating their way to a World Cup victory against England, Gus Poyet has admitted. But Sunderland's Uruguayan manager insists it is because the striker and his teammates hail from a country which sees nothing wrong with football's dark arts being used in pursuit of a win.

This summer marks four years since the Liverpool star shot to fame on the international stage when he was given a red card for handling the ball on the goalline during Uruguay's World Cup quarterfinal victory against Ghana in South Africa.

Rather than being painted as a villain in his homeland for denying the African nation a goal that would have put them in the semifinals, Suarez was afforded hero status for sacrificing himself for the team.

And Poyet claimed the 27-year-old would have no qualms repeating the trick in Brazil, despite having begun to repair his reputation in England after a series of on-field scandals.

The former Uruguay midfielder said: "I know that, for you, a handball on the goalline is cheating. It's not for us. It's part of the game like if I'm the last man and you're running and I pull your shirt and you go down and I get sent off. Is that cheating? No, it's not cheating. You take it as a last- man red card, fine. We take the same reaction [for what Suarez did].

"I know it was massive in England. But it's like a surprise for us. It's worse for us when you do something that no one sees, like punching someone. But a handball on the goalline is a handball on the goalline."

Poyet claimed Suarez and his teammates would do almost anything to ensure Uruguay beat England – who he accused of being too nice – in Group D on June 19.

"I think it's the way you win more than you lose. If you just go to the game and you play the game and, if you are worse, you lose then you don't want to win more than me."

Even if Suarez stays within the rules, England face a huge challenge keeping quiet a player who is now regarded as one of the world's best.

"You need to pay extra attention, because he is special," Poyet said of the man who swept English football's player of the year awards this season.

Poyet claimed Liverpool's talisman would love nothing more than to be the World Cup's biggest star, a challenge made tougher following his recent knee surgery.

The 46-year-old, who is part of ITV's punditry team for the tournament, said: "He is that kind of character. 'Yeah I've done this, I've done that. Now I want to go to the World Cup and I want to do well'." – The Daily Telegraph