Luis Suarez believes 24 year old Real Madrid midfielder Federico Valverde shares several ‘characteristics’ with Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard – widely considered one of the greatest all-round midfielder of his generation.

In an interview with Marca, Suarez said: “There are newspaper archives, back in 2017, when Fede made his debut in the national team, I already said that he reminded me of Steven Gerrard, who was a teammate of mine at Liverpool.

“He has similar characteristics: a box to box, with a good shot, change of pace, a lot of runs [into the box].

“I don’t want to compare, but the characteristics are similar. I saw Fede coming and he has made great progress, surrounded by great stars. It did him a lot of good.”