Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

skating. She is fifteen and he is seventeen. They meet, get to know each other, and fall in love. From then on, they are never apart. But this story is still to come. For the moment, Fernando is a lad who grows up, as his father says, in a ‘normal family’ surrounded by the love of his parents and paternal grandparents as well as those of his mother, Eulalio and Paz, who live not far away from Madrid in Valdeavero. A boy who grows up learning what it means to make sacrifices, to work hard, ‘to appreciate the important things and to understand,’ as José Torres always says, ‘what are the true values of life.’
    And to enjoy his football …

Chapter 6
Leader of the gang
     
    Five or six o’clock on a Saturday afternoon – a good time for a kick-around with the usual gang. Fernán, as his friends call him, puts himself in the goal that has been created between a wall and a mound of clothes. The game is non-stop, the boys create a huge dust cloud as they tear around after each other. The rules – even for those who want to use them – are virtually ignored. Then a pass is threaded through to Alexis, who finds the ball at his feet. Without hesitating, he shoots hard, very hard. The ball catches Torres full in the face and his mouth fills with blood. He bursts into tears and the game is over. His friends gather round and take him, running, back home to his mother, Flori. It’s a big shock for them all. He’s missing two front teeth.
    This is the point where Fernando Torres’ goalkeeping career ends. His brother, Israel, and his mother ban him from playing between the posts on the cement pitch. He himself also understands that maybe it’s better to try putting the ball into the net rather than trying to keep it out. And so begins the career of Fernando Torres as striker.
    ‘Fernán loved being in goal because of his brother, Israel, who was one of the best indoor football goalkeepers I’ve ever seen. He wanted to be like him but after he got smashed in the face, he never went back in goal. I was responsible for what happened and I felt bad. I was scared of getting a huge telling-off from my parents and from his. But, to be honest, it upset me a lot to see him like that and I remember going several times with him to the dentist. However, in one sense, the incident turned out well for him,’ says 26-year-old Alexis Gómez, now a security guard and the person responsible for changing the role of one of the world’s most famous strikers.
    Fernando Torres is six years old. One of the series on TV is
Campeones: Oliver y Benji
(Champions: Oliver and Benji), the Spanish language version of a hugely popular Japanese comic-style cartoon series about the adventures of a Japanese youth football team. It features super striker Tsubasa Ozora (known in Spanish by the English-style name of Oliver Atton) and the invincible goalkeeper Genzo Wakabayashi (Benji Price in the Spanish version). It tells the story of these two friends from their childhood to becoming professional footballers and, eventually, to being called up to the Japanese national side. Their adventures take in their team-mates, the training, the matches and the tournaments, as well as spectacular moves and action that would be impossible to perform in real life. These are the words of the (Spanish) theme tune:
    They go with the ball at their feet
and nobody can stop them.
The stadium vibrates with emotion
to see both of them play.
     
    They only play to win
but always in a sporting way
and there’s nobody better
for the fans.
     
    Oliver, Benji
magicians on the ball.
Benji, Oliver,
dreams of being champions.
Benji, Oliver,
mad about football,
they have to score another goal.
     
     
    Words and music that a lot of Spanish children have not forgotten. Torres was also a big fan of Oliver and Benji. He identified with the stories of the two youngsters and imagined himself being a footballer like them, a goalkeeper who let nothing past and a striker who, in the gardens around his home, was getting good at scoring against his brother Israel.
    Torres first began to kick his brother’s football around at just two years old. His brother was the model to follow. During the summer, the Torres Sanz family spent their holidays at Gastar (a small village about 12 miles from Santiago de Compostela), with the paternal grandparents. It’s where they got used to playing football. He played in the vegetable patch together with a group of cousins and local friends.