But no, Croatia's greatest goalscorer met the legendary Latin crooner while at Seville in the mid-Nineties and the pair have been close friends ever since.
When Suker is not cutting a swathe through the villas of Alicante and Murcia he is at his Zagreb coaching academy, plotting the next expansion of a burgeoning empire. Echoing the American dream of David Beckham, the former Arsenal and West Ham striker has staged clinics in New York, Toronto and Calgary, with Charlotte, North Carolina, next on the roster.
This is no mere excuse to augment his air miles; the project has already achieved notable successes. Dean Parrett, the young Tottenham winger who has represented England at Under-16 level, was a product of the Suker treatment in Austria.
Suker's coaching sideline is also one that he shares with Beckham, an intriguing sub-plot ahead of his country's battle royale with England on Wednesday night. But whereas Beckham's appearances at his hothouses in Greenwich and Los Angeles are infrequent, shoehorned into a diary crammed with appearances for Dolce & Gabbana, Suker's commitment to his own is unequivocal.
"This is my hobby business and business hobby," he says. "When I hold a training camp, I am there 24 hours or seven days. The difference between Beckham and myself is that every time I have training, I am there to train with the kids. We go to the swimming pool, we go to eat – I am there for the full seven days. That is my promise: not only to earn the money, that is not my way."
Beckham, of course, has the cachet to command the support of giant corporations, including adidas, while Suker's interests are funded by lesser sponsors such as Evian water.
Suker, though, derives a greater satisfaction from the work than he ever did in the Premier League or La Liga. "Kids from nine to 15 have a smile, it is the best time to work with them. It is much easier than when you have 25 players fighting for one place. It's not money talking, it's a case that everybody wants to learn."
He is equally conscious that his enterprise is serving not just as an inspiration for Croatia's young but as a unifying force throughout the former Yugoslavia.
"I am so happy, people from Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia all visit my soccer camp. My academy is open, it is not only for perfect football players. Everyone who dreams of one day becoming a player can come and visit my camp."
Behind this idealistic rhetoric, there whirrs a formidable business brain. Suker has even diversified into the beer trade, manufacturing a beer, "Davor", which has become the third best-selling in Croatia. Of his varied portfolio, he says: "I am a consultant, I have the 'everything will be OK' role. With my languages, with my experience, I can try to help big companies."
He is no slouch when it comes to assisting football teams either. Slaven Bilic, the Croatia coach, has approached him several times for advice, but Suker is realistic about the test his nation can expect from a side managed by Fabio Capello.
Both Suker and Capello, who combined to steer Real Madrid to the Spanish league title in 1996, esteem the virtues of hard work and strict organisation as highly as each other. Suker is left in no doubt that the England to be confronted in the three days' time are, under the Italian, a vastly improved proposition to the motley crew of Steve McClaren's, vanquished 22 months ago by Croatia in the Wembley rain.
"I am very good friends with Capello, so you can read between my words: England now have discipline, fight, pride. This is what modern football needs to have. You can compare it to what Harry Redknapp has achieved at Tottenham.
"That is the difference. I worked with Capello, and when England signed him I remember thinking how good he would be for them. I hope that England can be the World Cup winners in South Africa. But it will need a great deal of work.
"This next game, we need the points. England are the favourites – that is always the case in their beautiful stadium – but I have to hope Croatia can take a point. Fabio Capello now has all that he needs: defending and attacking. That's what England lacked before, a squad of 22 who were all of great quality."
But Suker is never one to talk down his countrymen's chances. He may not be their cheerleader in the uncompromising Balkan mould of Bilic but, having won the Golden Boot at the 1998 World Cup as Croatia reached the semi-finals in France, he is proof of their capacity to punch well above their weight.
The man often identified among the greatest living Croatians admits: "It is not important how much you earn in a week or a month – for your country you need to be proud, whether the country has four million people or 60 million.
"We demonstrated at the World Cup in '98 that we have the formula to fight against big teams. And we like to play with pressure. We have good potential in the squad, although we needed Eduardo fit for the European Championships last year. England will qualify for the World Cup as first in the group but Croatia should be second – if we are tough enough.
"No one can dismiss Croatia as just a small country. No one can regard us with, how you might say, frivolity? It is small country, but not in terms of its football. When someone does not talk nicely about Croatia, we can play very aggressively. We won 3-2 last time, so we don't need to show anything else."
And another thing...
Boarding schoolchildren unpacking trunks for another term will laugh at fears over how 23 grown men, all of them millionaires, can cope with spending five weeks away from home.
Yet the FA is well aware that English players get bored far quicker than other nations’. The base in South Africa will have an arcade packed with computer games, table tennis, pool etc, but what the squad needs most is a character, a joker in the pack.
The only occasions England have reached semi-finals since 1966 have been with the madcap Gazza putting a whoopee cushion under that old enemy, tedium.
England’s present crop are far more mature. Key leaders will be the captain John Terry, David Beckham, who will keep an eye on the younger players, while Paul Robinson and David James are ebullient personalities.
But the main man will be the popular, ego-free but quirky Wayne Rooney, England’s talisman off the field as well as on it.
telegraph.co.uk
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