Luis Suarez's El Clasico debut will be exciting
Friday 17 October 2014 11:47, UK
After Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo were awarded the Golden Shoe, Kevin Phillips reflects on when he won the trophy – and which of Suarez and Ronaldo he’d rather have played with…
Luis Suarez picked up the Golden Shoe award he’s sharing with Cristiano Ronaldo this week and it brought back memories of when I won the same trophy when I was at Sunderland. It seems an age ago but it was a major honour and one of the highlights of my career.
When you set out as a player, especially as a striker, you set yourself targets and goals. I certainly did and in quite a lot of my seasons I managed to achieve my aims. I generally set a target of between 15 and 20 goals each year and anything beyond 20 was a bonus.
When I look at the likes of Ronaldo and Messi picking up the Golden Shoe, for little old me to be sat in between that lot, I’m very proud of that.
Certainly nowadays, getting 20 in the Premier League is a major, major thing, so to get 30 league goals in the Premier League in 1999/00 was special – but I certainly didn’t have any idea I was even in the running for the European Golden Shoe. I didn’t even know it existed until the season finished!
I was presented with the trophy the following season and it wasn’t until people reeled off the names I was competing with that it really sunk in what an achievement it was.
It was fantastic to win it, though, and when I look at the likes of Ronaldo and Lionel Messi picking it up – they must have a cabinet full of them! – for little old me to be sat in between that lot, I’m very proud of that.
One of my friends has a lot of football memorabilia and is trying to set up a museum at the Stadium of Light. Recently he ran a promotion at a shopping centre in Sunderland to show off some of the stuff he’s got and I lent him my Golden Shoe for about two weeks.
I was so nervous something would happen to it! It was locked up at night and two security guards were standing by which made me feel better, but it’s good to have it back home now.
I’ve never really been one for parading my trophies in the house but my wife and kids persuaded me to get that one out on show and it’s always something visitors take an interest in.
When I look at this year’s winners, Suarez and Ronaldo, it would be amazing to have played with either of them. If I had to pick one, being selfish, I’d probably have to say Ronaldo.
For me, Suarez is an out-and-out goal scorer. Yes, he does create – he had 12 assists last year for Liverpool – but Ronaldo is a real creator.
He drifts out to the wing, he crosses the ball, he can thread a pass through between centre halves... In my heyday, playing alongside Ronaldo, I would perhaps have scored more goals with him.
Nevertheless they’re both world-class players. Ronaldo has done it year after year whereas Suarez has only done it the last couple of seasons at the top, top level, so it will be interesting to see if he can follow Ronaldo and Messi’s footsteps now his career is about to get underway in Spain.
Any good player, playing in a team like Barcelona, is going to benefit from playing with top quality players and when you add a world-class player to a team of world-class players you’d like to think they’re going to shine even more.
So I’m excited to watch Suarez in a Barcelona shirt and if he does make his debut in El Clasico, what an amazing entrance that would be. Let’s hope he doesn’t get up to his old antics but concentrates on playing football and we see the best of him.
Watch El Clasico on Sky Sports 5 at 5pm on Saturday, October 25.
