Luis Javier Suárez, a Colombian striker born in Santa Marta in 1997, plays for Sporting CP and is not to be confused with the Uruguayan of the same name. He scored in Sporting’s 2-0 win at Lens on 13 October 2026 and became the club’s outright all-time top scorer in the modern Champions League.
Luis Javier Suárez Charris was born on 2 December 1997 in Santa Marta, Colombia. He made his senior debut with the Colombian club Leones on 5 October 2015, coming on as a second-half substitute in a 3-1 loss to América de Cali, and after eight first-team appearances was loaned to Granada, where he joined the reserves in the Spanish third division. In 2017 he spent a year on loan at Real Valladolid B and scored 11 goals.
In July 2018 he moved on loan to Segunda División side Gimnàstic de Tarragona and made his professional debut on 20 August 2018, a 1-1 draw with Tenerife. He scored his first goal on 7 October against Cádiz, then in June 2019 was loaned to Real Zaragoza, where he ended the regular season with 19 goals as the team’s top scorer.
In 2020 he signed a five-year contract with Granada, his first sustained spell in the Spanish top flight and European competition, and scored in the Europa League against Omonia Nicosia. Granada were relegated in 2021-22, and in July 2022 he signed for Marseille, scoring twice on his debut in a 4-1 win over Reims. His playing time then dwindled, and he scored only three league goals that season, including the brace against Reims and a goal against Angers.
He moved to Almería in 2023, a deal made permanent after the club secured La Liga survival. In 2025 he finished as the Segunda División top scorer, and later that year he transferred to Sporting CP.
He made his senior debut for Colombia in 2020, in a World Cup qualifier against Uruguay, and he has played for his country in World Cup qualifying matches since then. In June 2026 the Colombian squad received a presidential send-off before the World Cup.
At Sporting, he has become a key figure in the Champions League. Sporting beat Galatasaray 3-1 on matchday 1, and on Tuesday they won 2-0 at Lens with goals from Suárez and Issa Doumbia. UEFA said that Suárez became Sporting’s outright all-time top scorer in the modern competition, and named him player of the match. It was a strong moment for a striker whose career has taken him through the lower divisions of Spain and France. At Granada he scored in the Europa League on 26 November 2020 in a 2-1 win over Omonia Nicosia, and he opened the scoring in a 1-1 draw with Valencia on 21 August 2021. He has Colombian roots, and at Marseille he started the Ligue 1 campaign on 7 August 2022 at the Stade Vélodrome. At Zaragoza, he could not play in the promotion play-offs because his loan ended, though he had finished the season as the team’s top scorer.
Image: Close-up portrait of Luis Javier Suárez (file photo). Photo: Fotografía oficial de la Presidencia de Colombia / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
