Luis Suarez has defended his team-mate and "friend" Philippe Coutinho from criticism at Barcelona , after the Brazil international's difficult start to his career with the La Liga giants.
Suarez made the same journey as Coutinho, swapping Liverpool for Camp Nou, and understands the his fellow South American's struggles to adapt to the microscope in Catalunya.
Watch Champions League | Soccer Live Streaming | DAZN CA
The Uruguay forward remembered his own struggles in dealing with the attention he faced when starting to play for the Blaugrana and backed Coutinho to overcome the critics.
“Barcelona players have to live with constant criticism; you have to have the internal mental strength to overcome bad moments,” Suarez told The Guardian .
“Phillipe is a friend, he’s young and I try to advise him. At Liverpool he proved the player he is.
“It was hard for me and I told him it would be the same.
“You have to accept criticism, but the most important thing is that he’s comfortable, happy, his team-mates trust in him, the manager trusts in him.”
Suarez spoke of the reaction to Coutinho’s goal celebration after scoring in the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United.
Coutinho put his fingers in his ears in an apparent gesture toward his critics, and Suarez says fans should support players, rather than barrack them.
“Players are exposed. The smallest thing you do – tiny, like Philippe did – is made bigger. The manager [Ernesto Valverde] said it: ‘I’m surprised they you’re talking about the gesture and not the great goal he scored,’ a goal that would have given him confidence.
“Sometimes you have to understand him. If fans want a player to perform, be on his side, support him, because a player out on the pitch – and it happens to me – is not stupid.
“He hears it when he loses a ball and there’s this ‘zzzzzhhhhhiiii’, he hears that buzzing, that murmur and that affects him.
“He thinks ‘Ay, the fans ay, if I lose another ball.’ No, the fans have to support our players. If they want to win the Champions League and everything, they have to be with the player.”
Suarez conceded that English football is a different environment to that in Spain, but that Coutinho must adapt, as he did.
“English football in general is a different culture. What you have to do is learn to live with that.”
Barcelona and Liverpool will come face to face in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final at Camp Nou on Wednesday before the second leg at Anfield six days later.
