Paul McCartney Vs. Luis Suarez: Liverpool Favorites Collide In One-Of-A-Kind Interview

Paul McCartney — or as he’s been known since 1997, Sir Paul McCartney — has been interviewed thousands of times in his storied career, quite possibly the most successful career any musician has ever had.

From his earliest days in The Beatles, through his ascendancy to superstardom in his own right with his band Wings in the 1970s and as a solo performer later, until today when he still sells out stadiums around the world at age 71, McCartney has always proven a chatty and affable interview subject.

In fact, the charming and witty persona he presents through his countless interviews has, it is fair to say, been almost as important to his phenomenal success as his music. But has Paul McCartney ever been interviewed by a pro soccer player? A Uruguayan pro soccer player? A Uruguayan pro soccer player who is the top scorer and star of the top team from Paul McCartney’s home city of Liverpool?

He has now.

Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, whose league-leading 29 goals this season are driving Liverpool toward their first English championship since 1990, is also known as an avid music buff. So it was living a different kind of dream for the 27-year-old star to sit down with Sir Paul — well, “sit down” via international online link-up — to ask a few questions of the Beatles legend, whose brilliant 1967 song “Penny Lane” was a tribute to a favorite neighborhood in his hometown.

In fact, Suarez actually asks Paul McCartney what’s like to be a “legend.”

“In football, we talk about legends all the time, our legends in my country are those who won the World Cup in 1950,” says Suarez in the conversation, recorded on the eve of McCartney performing to a sold-out 50,000 seat Centenario Stadium in the Uruguayan capital of Monetvideo. “How is this for you? Being a legend in the world of music and still doing music and tours at the same time?”

Needless to say, the answer Paul McCartney gives is delivered with his typical humility.

“Well, you know, I don’t think of myself as a legend, it’s very nice of you to say that,” he says with a slight bow. “Thank you. It’s great – I love what I do. I love playing with my band, I love going to beautiful places like Montevideo, Uruguay, and the rest of the South American places we’re going to play. I love what I do, very lucky man.”

But at the end of the interview, Paul McCartney hints at a little secret. He is actually fan of Liverpool’s “other” soccer club, the bitter crosstown rival to Suarez’s Liverpool. And that would be Everton, the team representing the suburban area near where Paul McCartney, as well as fellow Beatle John Lennon, grew up.

Watch the interview to the end to see how Paul McCartney gets in a friendly, little jab at Luis Suarez and Liverpool.