Suarez takes bite out of World Cup

Italian delicacies: saltimbocca, panettone, gelato, tartufi, tiramisu, prosciutto e melone … Giorgio Chiellini’s left shoulder.

Uruguay striker Luis Suarez got a mouthful of the Italian defender Tuesday and might finally have bit off more than he can chew. Uruguay got a 1-0 win against Italy and, with it, a spot in the second round, but Suarez likely won’t be around to play in it.

There have been heroes in this World Cup. Now it has a villain.

FIFA formally opened disciplinary proceedings against Suarez late Tuesday night under a provision that allows for "sanctioning serious infringements which have escaped the match officials’ attention." That includes the use of video, and it’s hard to imagine the 27-year-old Liverpool forward won’t be banned for the rest of the tournament and perhaps longer.

“He bit me, it’s clear," Chiellini said. "I still have the mark.”

The situation: Uruguay and Italy playing in their Group D finale at Natal’s Arena das Dunas, still 0-0 as the game entered the final 15 minutes, a tie good enough for Italy to advance, Uruguay needing a win. As the ball was played into the goal mouth, Suarez charged from behind Chiellini, leaned forward, opened his jaw and clamped down on his left shoulder.

Chiellini reflexively swung his elbow, and Suarez, claiming he was struck in the face, collapsed to the ground and covered his face in mock pain. Chiellini pulled down his blue jersey and showed what appeared to be bite marks.

The referee waved for the teams to play on. Uruguay scored two minutes later, and the Azzurri were eliminated in the first round in a second straight World Cup after winning it all in 2006.

The referee? Mexico’s Marco Rodriguez. His nickname? Chiquidracula, for his slicked-back black hair and his resemblance to a Mexican TV character who plays a child Count Dracula.

(We couldn’t make this stuff up.)

Rodriguez is known throughout Mexico’s Liga MX and from two previous World Cups as a quick draw with red cards. In five previous World Cup games, he had shown four reds. He made it five earlier in the second half, ejecting Italy’s Claudio Marchisio for a cleat to the leg of questionable intent.

The great irony: The mother of all red cards, a bite by a guy with a history of biting, he misses.

But Rodriguez shouldn’t feel so bad. The other two times Suarez bit an opponent, the referees missed it, too.

Suarez was suspended seven games in 2010 while playing for Dutch club Ajax after chomping on the shoulder of PSV Eindhoven midfielder Otman Bakkal, earning him the nickname, “The Cannibal of Ajax.”

Last year, playing for Liverpool, Suarez grabbed the arm of Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic and tasted it. That got him a 10-game suspension that carried over into the 2014-15 season and a tongue lashing from Prime Minister David Cameron, who called it “appalling.”

There also was the reported head butt of a referee in a Uruguayan youth game when he was 15; the racial insult directed at Manchester United’s Patrice Evra that fetched a $68,000 fine and eight-match ban; and the cynical, intentional hand ball that saved a sure goal against Ghana in the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup and got him suspended for the semis.

The crazy part: Five days ago Suarez was a triumphant hero, hobbling back from knee surgery to score both goals in a 2-1 win against England that resuscitated Uruguay’s dimming hopes of reaching the second round. He buried his head in a teammate’s shoulder and sobbed as the final seconds ticked away, and afterward he blasted his critics.

“Everybody knows too many people in England laugh at me and (criticize) my attitude these last few years,” Suarez said. “I want to see the Internet and what they’re saying now.”

He doesn’t want to see what they’re saying now.

Boxer Evander Holyfield, whose ear was famously chewed off by Mike Tyson, tweeted: “I guess any part of the body is up for eating.”

McDonald’s of Uruguay even tweeted: “Hi @luis16suarez, if you’re still hungry come and have a bite of a Big Mac.”

“Jaws 3,” several English tabloids called it.

“Chewy Luis does it again,” The Sun stripped across the page.

“Anyone got a tooth pick?” the Daily Telegraph asked.

One Internet meme showed a picture of a soccer jersey, with dotted lines indicating various cuts of beef – chuck, brisket, sirloin, flank – and the title: “How Suarez sees every opponent’s jersey.”

Suarez would become the biggest name booted from a World Cup since Argentina’s Diego Maradona and his positive drug test in 1994. The longest FIFA suspension for on-field incident in a World Cup also came in 1994, when Italy’s Mauro Tassotti broke the nose of Spain’s Luis Enrique with a vicious elbow.

Suarez, the subject of offseason transfer rumors involving Barcelona and Real Madrid, didn’t seem to think anything was amiss. His teams are also 3-0 when he bites someone.

“These are just things that happen out on the pitch,” he told Uruguayan TV. “It was just the two of us inside the area and he bumped into me with his shoulder, and that’s how my eye got like this as well. There are things that happen on the field.

“You should not make such a big deal out of them.”