Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini has said that he admires Uruguay rival Luis Suarez for biting him at the 2014 World Cup.

Suarez infamously bit Chiellini just one minute before Diego Godin scored the only goal of the match, in an exceptionally bad-tempered match at the Arena das Dunas in Natal, Brazil.

Suarez was suspended for nine international matches and banned from taking part in any football-related activity (including entering any stadium) for four months, but Chiellini has said that the bite never bothered him.

In fact, he has said he was impressed with Suarez’s “cunning”.

“Malice is part of football, I wouldn’t call it illegitimate. To get past a rival you have to be smart,” the Juventus captain said in his new autobiography.

“I admire his cunning.

“If he lost it, he’d become an ordinary forward.”

Uruguay scored a dramatic late winner to knock four-time winners Italy out of the World Cup, after Claudio Marchisio had earlier seen red for a studs-up challenge on Egidio Arevalo.

But Chiellini said that he bears Suarez no malice.

“I marked (Edinson) Cavani for most of the match, another guy who is difficult to mark and who we didn’t hold back against,” Chiellini continued.

“Suddenly I noticed that I had been bitten in the shoulder. It just happened, but that’s his strategy in hand-to-hand combat and, if I may say so, it’s mine too. He and I are alike, and I like to take on attackers like him.”