Is Football ready to forget the controversial side of suarez

In a sign of his turnaround, Luis Suarez was awarded The Football Supporters' Federation Award. However, is everyone willing to forget his past antics?Olivia Brown has not forgotten. Or, more to the point, her father, Des, hasn't.Olivia, you might recall, was the 10-year-old Tottenham mascot who refused to shake Luis Suarez's hand before her side faced Liverpool on Sunday. She had been egged on by her dad, who had promised her the princely sum of 20 pounds if she thumbed her nose at the Uruguayan as the two teams were introduced to each other.Apart from the troubling evidence of Weimar Republic-style hyperinflation -- what could a 10-year-old possibly need 20 pounds for? Surely 5 pounds would have been enough? -- it is a funny little story. It was certainly taken that way. Suarez laughed, Olivia got her small fortune, Des got his message across and Liverpool’s 5-0 win cost Andre Villas-Boas his job. Everyone's a winner.Suarez was back in north London, 36 hours later, a winner again. This time he was at the Emirates -- the place he came moderately close to calling home over the course of the summer -- to be awarded the Football Supporters' Federation Player of the Year award.It is by no means a given that players turn up for these things, by the way, and Suarez deserves credit for taking the time to return from Liverpool, along with his wife, Sofia, to attend. It may have just been a PR stunt, a ploy to win a few friends, but then there are loads who can’t be bothered even to do that.Besides, he seemed genuinely touched to have won the gong. He gave a short speech in halting, Russian-accented English (no idea why), describing how much it meant to him to win a public vote after the "difficult moments" he has had this past year.He answered two or three questions from the evening's host, James Richardson, who teased out of him that he had hoped and prayed Uruguaywould not have to play England in the World Cup. He returned to his table and finished his meal, and let it be known he would be happy to sign autographs or have his picture taken with anyonewho so desired. The queue formed immediately.What is the lesson here? Is it that we are now finally ready to assess Suarez as a footballer, rather than judging his character? Is his penitence over? Is it time -- as Martin Tyler, the Sky Sports commentator, suggested -- to put pasttransgressions "which he probably deeply regrets" behind him, and behind us?Suarez, of course, will hope that it is. He is used to being talked about, the 26-year-old, but you have the sense he would prefer the old conversations to come to an end and the new one to begin.It is much more pleasant, after all. Just where does Suarez stand in the pantheon of the modern greats? Is there a case to be made that he is the best in the world?This is, to an extent, football's most facile debate. How can you judge whether Suarez is a better player than Manuel Neuer? By what criteria can you judge them? Was Zinedine Zidane a better footballer than Fabio Cannavaro? Or Johan Cruyff superior to Franz Beckenbauer?The temptation is always to highlight the genius of the creator, the artist, the attacker, the man whomakes the goals and scores the goals. But the dark side, stopping beauty in its tracks, requires just as much talent and is statistically more important: according to "The Numbers Game," notconceding a goal is more than twice as valuable as scoring one.