Strik­er Luis Suárez will play his last game for Uruguay on Fri­day.

Suárez was emo­tion­al as he an­nounced he’s end­ing a 17-year in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer af­ter the World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Paraguay at Cen­te­nario Sta­di­um.

“It hurts to say it, but Fri­day will be my last match with my coun­try’s na­tion­al team,” Suárez said late Mon­day, un­able to hold back tears at a press con­fer­ence.

“I am re­tir­ing be­cause I want to step aside. I am 37 years old, there are a lot of tal­ent­ed play­ers, and I know it would be dif­fi­cult to get to the next World Cup. It is com­fort­ing to know I can re­tire on my terms and not have to re­tire due to in­juries, or to not be­ing called up. I want to say good­bye here, with my peo­ple. This is the ide­al mo­ment.”

Suárez made his de­but in 2007 and is Uruguay’s all-time lead­ing scor­er with 69 goals in 142 match­es.

He played in four World Cups and five Co­pa Amer­i­ca. He helped to lead the team to the ti­tle at the 2011 Co­pa, where he scored twice in the semi­fi­nals and the match-win­ner in the fi­nal and was named play­er of the tour­na­ment.

“It’s very dif­fi­cult but I want to be re­laxed when I play my last game with the na­tion­al team,” he said. “I will be just as ex­cit­ed as I was for my first na­tion­al team ap­pear­ance in 2007 when I was a 19-year-old kid. Now, I am a vet­er­an, an old­er play­er, what­ev­er you want to call it, with an in­cred­i­ble his­to­ry with the na­tion­al team and I will give my life for the team on Fri­day.”

In the 2010 World Cup quar­ter­fi­nals, Suárez pre­vent­ed Ghana from scor­ing an ex­tra-time win­ner with his hand on the goal-line, and was red-card­ed. Ghana missed the re­sult­ing penal­ty kick, Uruguay won a penal­ty shootout and reached the semi­fi­nals for the first time in 40 years.

Suárez was hailed at home as a sav­iour, but he was scorned at the 2014 World Cup when he bit Italy de­fend­er Gior­gio Chielli­ni in their last group game. It was the third of four times in his ca­reer he bit a play­er. FI­FA banned Suarez for nine games, the longest ban in World Cup his­to­ry, and he missed the rest of the tour­na­ment and the 2015 Co­pa Amer­i­ca.

“My fear has al­ways been that my last­ing im­age for my chil­dren and all Uruguayan fans would be of 2014,” Suárez said. ”I have got­ten past that. And I hope the peo­ple have al­so for­got­ten and they are left with all the great mo­ments I lived in our sta­di­um, with all the things our team ac­com­plished, in Co­pas Amer­i­ca, in World Cups.”

He reached 100 caps at the 2018 World Cup and was twice named man of the match en route to the quar­ter­fi­nals. But in 2022, Uruguay didn’t get out of their group.

Suárez will con­tin­ue at In­ter Mi­a­mi, which he has pre­vi­ous­ly said will be his last club. He’s al­so had a stel­lar ca­reer at clubs in­clud­ing Barcelona, Liv­er­pool, Ajax and Atleti­co Madrid.

MON­TE­V­IDEO, Uruguay (AP)