Past winners of the prestigious FIFA Golden Ball, awarded to the top player at each World Cup, include Pele, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Zinedine Zidane and, most recently, Uruguay’s Diego Forlan in 2010. In a look at who may emerge as one of World Cup 2014’s standouts, Deputy Sports Editor Tan Yo-Hinn (yohinn [at] mediacorp.com.sg) shifts the focus today to the enigmatic Uruguayan Luis Suarez.

Luis Suarez is seldom seen without his thermal flask, wooden-metal lined gourd and bombilla (a special metal straw) from which he sips mate, a popular green tea beverage in South America.

To explain what makes the enigmatic and unpredictable Uruguayan tick, there have been theories that the drink is somehow the secret behind his reputation as one of the world’s most-feared forwards, with that uncanny ability to make things happen.

But while these theories do not have any real basis, they are probably in the right direction, culturally that is.

In a recent interview with FourFourTwo magazine, Suarez revealed a quality he calls “botijo” in Spanish, a certain street-wise cunning and instinct that can be learnt only on the streets.

And that perhaps best explains why, at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, he used his hands to stop a goal-bound header from Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah on the line. That act in injury time of the quarter-final match in Johannesburg earned him a sending-off but almost certainly saved Uruguay’s campaign.

“I’m definitely still doing things I used to try on the streets,” he told the magazine. “I guess I’m still a botija, a street kid who relies on the cunning I learnt on the streets. These days, I’m not thinking intuitively about these skills; they just come out of me as instinct.”

That single act — where he exhibited that ingenuity, spontaneity and uncanny sixth sense for the slightest whiff of an opening or opportunity to make something happen, by legal means or otherwise — perhaps sealed Suarez’s reputation as one of the biggest football mavericks in the business today.

What makes Suarez special is you never quite know what you are going to get.

But his subscribing to football’s “dark arts” should not cloud the fact that he is also one of the world’s most tactically and technically accomplished finishers today, along with an extremely high work-rate that is not always noticed.

Suarez has scored goals wherever he played, be it at his boyhood club Nacional, Groningen, Ajax Amsterdam and Liverpool, or with Uruguay, where he is his country’s record goalscorer with 38 goals in 77 appearances.

“I’m one of the best players in the world, so having the opportunity to win everything — and losing only occasionally — is what drives me,” he told FourFourTwo. “I’m ambitious. I want to win and won’t stop until I score one, two or more goals.”

He heads to Brazil in the form of his life at club side Liverpool, where his 31 goals were the fuel for an unexpected title challenge and which landed him the prestigious PFA Players’ Player of the Year and European Golden Shoe awards. His 11 goals in the marathon, two-year long, 16-match South American World Cup qualifiers have also helped Uruguay earn their ticket to Brazil.

It is little surprise, then, that when news that he required surgery on the meniscus in his left knee two weeks ago nearly caused South America’s smallest nation to go hysterical at the possibility that their talisman could miss the World Cup, where they are paired in Group D — the “Group of Death” — with former winners Italy and England, and minnows Costa Rica against whom they open their campaign on June 14 in Fortaleza.

Equally, news of Suarez recovering sufficiently to rejoin the national side for a light workout earlier this week at their Complejo Celeste training ground in Montevideo drew a collective sigh of relief from his 3.3 million compatriots.

Famous for his Cheshire Cat grin, Suarez is akin to a likeable villain who draws mixed feelings.

He was branded the “Cannibal of Ajax” for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal, an act he repeated in England by sinking his teeth into Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, which earned him a 10-match ban. His race row with Manchester United’s Patrice Evra earned a rebuke from his sponsor adidas and he also tested Liverpool’s patience by angling for a move away from Anfield, with Real Madrid waiting in the wings.

In recent months, however, Suarez appears to have calmed down, due in large part to the influence of his wife — childhood sweetheart Sofia Balbi — and his children Delfina and Benjamin.

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Suarez, who moved from his birthplace Salto to the capital Montevideo as an 11-year-old, admitted he has a “bad boy” image and does not like what he sees in the mirror.

“I would like that to change because it’s awful to hear and read what is said of you,” he said.

“On the field, sometimes passion overwhelms you and you do things you regret afterward. At the same time, you have a chance to learn from those things.

“I think I (have) been a role model since last summer; I have been professional and I have the desire to forge ahead and play well regardless of what is said to me.”

In some ways, Suarez’s recent injury could be a blessing. Yes, he would have to work double, even triple his work-rate to regain match fitness.

You can take Suarez out of the street, but not the street out of him. Couple that with his must-win character and the enforced time out, Suarez may just hit the World Cup like a tightly-wound spring. The effect could be potent.

LUIS SUAREZ FACT FILE:

Full name: Luis Alberto Suarez Diaz

Birth: Jan 24, 1987 in Salto

Height: 1.81m

Position: Forward

Teams: Nacional (2005-2006), Groningen (2006-2007), Ajax (2007-2011), Liverpool (2011-present), Uruguay (2007-present)

Honours (selected): Dutch Eredivisie (2011), Copa America (2011), PFA Players’ Player of the Year (2013), European Golden Shoe (2013).