By Tim Stannard

Why Luis Suarez should be grateful for Barcelona for sparing him the pain of a season at the Camp Nou

Sports Burst had hoped that Luis Suarez might have gotten over his Barcelona rejection some five months later.

Wrong.

Words appearing in the latest edition of France Football suggest otherwise. El Pistolero is still in sulky rage mode and continuing a big, old hissy fit about Barcelona no longer requiring the services of the then-33-year-old striker last September to help ease a wage bill that is currently crippling the club. 

"What really bothered me was that they told me I was older and that I could no longer play at the highest level," fumed Suarez to the French magazine, "they told me they no longer counted on me. I deserved respect."

As it turned out, Barcelona were pretty much doing the forward a favor by sparing the Uruguayan a fairly glum time of it at the Camp Nou and giving Suarez the chance to win LaLiga, and maybe a considerably longer run in the Champions League than Barcelona are going to have. 

What the Atletico Madrid striker needs to do in the hours before today's Champions League clash against Chelsea is load up on 'Frozen' and take inspiration from Elsa and her "Let it go!" demon-exorcising ditty. 

It's time to move on. 

And also hope that the cold never bothers Suarez anyway considering the temperature will be around freezing point in Bucharest, Romania, where today's match is being played. 

Simeone continues to exist in the single plane of reality

Diego Simeone is the role model for Suarez to follow in being all with the mindful meditation by living 99.9% of his life in the present. The message from Monday's press conference was - losing to Levante on Saturday - doesn't matter, it's in the past. The LaLiga title race - doesn't matter, it's in the future. 

Simeone wasn't even bothered about playing Atletico's home game in Romania due to the Chelsea team not being allowed into Spain due to COVID-19 restrictions - "what we like to do is play football without thinking about things we cannot control."

Unlike Simeone who has had 10 years in charge of Atletico Madrid, Thomas Tuchel has had just under a month to tweak away at Chelsea and try to turn them into a team capable of reaching the Champions League final - a feat he achieved with PSG last season. 

The result so far is a side that definitely has more of a game-plan than under Frank Lampard but is still far from the machine that is Atletico Madrid in its pomp. 

The Sports Burst show will be looking ahead to this match as well as Real Madrid and Barcelona who are both in action on Wednesday. Head to Facebook at 12PM ET to have your say. 

Ronald Koeman welcoming chance to talk to press again 

Speaking of Real Madrid, the squad headed to northern Italy on Tuesday to face Atalanta in the Champions League. And for some, the journey would have been more than exciting considering the party is traveling with five outfield players from the second-team. 

Zinedine Zidane's injury problems are not going away anytime soon with Karim Benzema still sidelined with a muscle tear along with eight other first-teamers. That is bad timing with Real Madrid facing an Atalanta side that is the second highest scorer in Italy this season having just stuck four past Napoli at the weekend. 

Ronald Koeman will also be back in the limelight on Tuesday, very much looking forward to meeting the media to discuss the tactical ins and outs of Barcelona's match against Elche in LaLiga on Wednesday that is live at 1PM ET on beIN SPORTS. 

Way before that takes place, there is a slew of games on the network today, with six CAF Champions League group stage encounters, an international women's match-up between France and Switzerland at 3PM ET and then the start of the 2021 Copa Libertadores with the qualifying match between Liverpool and Universidad Catolica.

Jurgen Klopp's men are going for a much needed win and looking to get that once fearsome forward trident working again - not really, this particular Liverpool are from Uruguay but the joke still works. Liverpool vs. Universidad Catolica is live on beIN SPORTS at 7:30PM ET.